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\ 



MODBHIT 


FISHERS OF MEN 


AMONG 

THE YAEIOUS SETS, SECTS, 
AND SEXES OF CHAETVILLE 
CHUKCH AND COMMUNITY 


BY 

GEOEGE LANSING KAYMOND 


THIRD EDITION 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 
XTbe Iknicfterbocl^er press 
1911 





OOPYBIGHT BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
1879. 

GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND 
1908. 





.) 





ti 

r* 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — Introduction : Bait Provided, and a Few 

First Bites 5 

IL — Some Fish, Seeming Tired op Biting, are 

Drawn in by a Net .... 20 

III. — Certain Inferences Drawn from the 

Foregoing Experiences ... 31 

IV. — An Excursion to a very Promising 

Fishing-Ground, together with Some 
Discussions on Methods of Fishing in 
General 43 

V. — Some Lines Thrown out and Fishing 
Begun, with a Fair Prospect that the 
Sport will Prove Interesting . . 55 

VI. — A Little Quiet Fishing, in which Some 

Fish, Great and Small, are Caught . 66 

VII. — A Little Fishing that was not very 

Quiet . . .... 81 

VIII. — Some Fish that Ran away from a Noisy 
Fisher’s Net . 

8 


93 


4 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

IX. — A Fisher who, for Some Reason, was 

Vacillating 101 

X. — How the Vacillating Fisher’s Tackle 

WOULD NOT Work 110 

XL — Discussion Concerning Different Kinds 

OF Tackle, and Conclusions Therefrom 125 

XII. — How AN Enterprising Fisher was Capsized 134 

XIII. — How AN Inexperienced Fisher Rescued 

One of the Victims .... 145 

XIV. — To Catch a Larger School of Fish, it 

is Decided to Use a Different Kind 
OF Net 150 

XV. — A Sunset on the Fishing- Grounds . . 159 

XVI. — A Few Concluding Observations with 

Reference to Some Successful Fishers 168 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


CHAPTEE I. 

INTEODTJCTION : BAIT PEOVIDED, AND A FEW FIEST BITES. 

“ Heee’s a telegram for you, sir,” said a small boy. 

The person addressed — ^a slender, intellectual-looking 
young man, with a pale face, the beginnings of some 
side-whiskers, full lips, and small bright eyes — signed his 
name in the messenger’s book, tore open the envelope, 
and read : 

“ Expect me to-night at eight, and don’t go off lark- 
ing. Will Loeino.” 

The reader’s face brightened. “Aha!” he said to 
himself; “ so the captain’s home again, is he? and is 
coming over here. Well, he may call it larking or not. 


6 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


as lie chooses. At any rate, he’ll be on hand just in 
time for — ” 

At this moment a large family carriage, drawn by a 
span of spirited white horses, drove up toward the lect- 
ure-room of Chartville church, within the doorway of 
which the young man had been standing. As he heard 
the sound of the wheels, and glanced up, a slight flush 
gathered upon his countenance. “ There comes Martha 
Beaufort,” he thought. 

But he had been mistaken. All the same, however, 
when, through the open window of the carriage, he 
caught sight of its chief occupant, his form, that had 
waited for a moment in that erect position to which he 
was often wont to refer as a strong argument against 
Darwinism, began a series of movements in which the 
head swayed backward and forward or upward and down- 
ward, according to one’s point of view, with a somewhat 
astonishing display of agility. It was this peculiar move- 
ment, witnessed on occasions preceding the present, that 
had caused the boys of the town to give to the Bev. H. 
Dickory Thompson, to whom the form belonged (his 
mother had been a Dickory), the nickname of Hickory. 
One characteristic, however, does not make a character. 

This young pastor probably had not yet reached the 
age when one cares to analyze his own actions in order 
to detect their motives. But, if he had done so, he could 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


7 


have found, undoubtedly, ample reasons to justify his 
course. The quicksand does not hold one to itseK less 
firmly, he might have said, because at first it seems to be 
so yielding. By-and-by these boys of Chartville may 
discover that, if hickory can bend, it can also form the 
bow or beau whose aim can make another bend. 

Of this analysis of motives, however, there is no need 
that we should accuse the Kev. H. Dickory Thompson ; 
nor even of saying to himself, what the Smith boys said 
of him to their mother, that “ he knew who the good 
angels of his church were ; why should he not bow before 
them ? ” Let us consider it purely the overflow of good 
nature, intent to secure through it and by it the good of 
his church and the community, that swayed the frame of 
this gentleman backward and forward as he came rapidly 
down the steps in order to help from her carriage that 
occupant of it of whom he had caught a glimpse through 
its window. 

“ Good-aftemoon, Mrs. Beaufort,” he said. “ I’m 
glad you have come so early — but where are the chil- 
dren ? ” he added, as he looked toward the seats on each 
side of her. 

“ Why,” said the lady, who was a well-formed, well- 
preserved, matronly-looking person, with unusually regu- 
lar features, and a complexion altogether too fresh to be 
hidden away so largely under the front locks of her hair. 


8 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


that, like two black window-curtains, were festooned 
down across her forehead, just touching her eyebrows 
and covering haK her cheeks — “why,” she answered, 
with a slight laugh, “ we thought our ark for once could 
navigate without them; besides, the other creatures 
would have crowded them, you see.” 

They would, in fact, thought Thompson, as he looked 
about upon the seats ; and still more did the impression 
grow upon him as he joined the lady and her coachman 
in their efforts to remove the contents of the carriage to 
the tables waiting for them in the lecture-room. Out 
came first a huge turkey, almost as big as Mamie Beau- 
fort herself, and certainly decked out with as many rib- 
bons. Then there was a lobster-salad that looked like a 
small fiower-garden, and a whole wedding outfit of bou- 
quets covering the front seat. Besides these there were 
bushels — as it seemed to the young pastor — of sandwiches 
and cakes of every description. 

“Well,” he exclaimed, after they had ended their 
journeyings up and down the steps, “ you certainly have 
done your share in what you have brought.” 

“ And I rather think,” she said, “ that my big family, 
when they get here, will do their share in disposing of 
what others bring. But, as I tell my girls, Mr. Thomp- 
son, it’s all for your sake — the whole of it. We’re very 
anxious, all of us, to have you succeed here, you know.” 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


9 


It was not an extraordinary circumstance, certainly, 
that a lady-parishioner should have based her efforts in 
behalf of a church-festival on the ground of her personal 
interest in her pastor ; but, for some reason or other, this 
speech, coming from Mrs. Beaufort, had anything but an 
ordinary effect on the particular young pastor to whom it 
was addressed. His whole countenance began to betray 
a very unusual degree of agitation, and all at once his 
mouth began to extend from side to side so widely that, 
if he had really been a bow, to which a moment ago I 
compared him, no one could have watched that bow with- 
out solicitude — without much serious apprehension that, 
when bent backward the next time, the upper and more im- 
portant end would be split off finally and fatally from aU 
the rest. Though wherefore should he not have shown 
this agitation ? He was himseK exceedingly young, just 
starting out in life. Mrs. Beaufort, who had told him 
that she thought so much of him, was a very wealthy 
widow, the foremost lady in his church, the most influen- 
tial person in the neighborhood ; and Mrs. Beaufort had, 
besides, at least one very charming daughter. 

Then, too, this youthful pastor had to-night an anx- 
ious heart on account of his solicitude for the success of 
this church-festival. It was his first experience with an 
entertainment of the sort. He had found his congrega- 
tion, when, a few months since, he had come here to 


10 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


take charge of it, in equal need of money and — in this 
suburban town, made up of city people and of country 
people both — of getting acquainted with one another. 
Therefore, he had planned this evening’s gathering. 
But now that the hour drew near in which to find out 
what would be the result of it, there was present to his 
consciousness a vague and sickening feeling, similar to 
what a boy has when, for the first time, he has ended 
loading up a gun, and is about to fire it off. He is not 
entirely certain whether the gun will hit its aim, kick 
back at himself, or end in a general explosion ; though, 
whatever is to be the upshot, he has braced himself for 
the attempt, and is relieved to think that the time has 
come to give the experiment vent. Mrs. Beaufort’s 
words, so far as one could judge from them, were an in- 
dication that the experiment about to be tried this even- 
ing was to pass off smoothly. 

In an hour or two, the lecture-room was beginning to 
be filled with representatives of other families who had 
brought their contributions, and had placed them on the 
tables. Behind these stood a row of the younger ladies 
of the congregation, most of them dressed in white, their 
cheeks blooming in fair rivalry of the fiowers that they 
w’ore, and beginning to fiush more deeply, now and then, 
as they turned to welcome the expected strangers who 
were to be their patrons. In a small room adjoining, 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


11 


used as a kitchen, were their mothers, cutting up cake, 
and preparing sandwiches, oysters, tea, and coffee. 

“There,” said Mrs. Goosnek, a tall woman with a 
small head, a long nose, and shoulders that looked as 
though they had become totally worn out trying to keep 
a generation of dresses from slipping down her back — 
“ there,” she said, as she placed a large coffee-pot on the 
stove, “ there’s some coffee for you. Do you know, Mr. 
Thompson says he never tastes such coffee as mine is, 
and he don’t find such ham as we cure, anywhere ? ” 

This was said somewhat exultantly, and with a some- 
what triumphant glance given in the direction of Mrs. 
Lathrop, who stood near her. It was with Mrs. Lathrop 
that the pastor, Mr. Thompson, boarded. Mrs. Goosnek 
was evidently one of those persons who believe in the 
necessity of cultivating Christian humility — in others. 

As for Mrs. Lathrop, she made no reply, just then. 
She was a discreet woman, and knew that Mrs. Goosnek’s 
words, uttered in the presence of a dozen or more wo- 
men of the parish, the hospitalities of whose tables the 
Kev. Mr. Thompson had enjoyed, would do enough 
harm without any further contributions from herseK. 
But it was not in human nature for her to keep from say- 
ing, when, after a little, Mrs. Goosnek had gone into the 
other room, that there were just two things that the 
Kev. Mr. Thompson never touched when he was at 


12 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


home; one was coffee — ^he always drank tea; and the 
other was pork, in any form. He said he couldn’t di- 
gest it. 

Humph,” said little old, dried-up Miss Sniffins, with 
a head that tossed back, as she did so, like the patent- 
spring lid of a snuff-box about to be delivered of its 
sneeze-provoking contents, “ I guess he’s more afraid of 
trichina ! ” 

But whatever may have been the reason of the pas- 
tor’s aversion, in a community where all the farmers 
raised pork, and mainly lived on it, his opposition to the 
staple commodity, so soon as it became known, was des- 
tined to cause no little commotion. In fact, for a while 
it seemed as though his ban against it was about to cause 
as rapid a desertion of himself on the part of the evil 
spirits in his neighborhood possessed of pork, as the pork 
possessed of evil spirits did in the days of the Minister of 
Galilee. At one time it was confidently expected by the 
members of the rival sect in Chartville that it would be 
the cause of a large accession to their own communion. 
“Ho wonder they’re all sick of him, he’s such a wretch- 
edly fussy fellow,” said little Mozart Fidgeton (“the 
boys ” all called him Mose, and said his name was Moses) 
who played the organ in “ the other ” church. 

“ The next time the man comes here, Matilda,” said 
Farmer Gobblupp to his wife, waving his fork above the 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


13 


onions, like a vultnre about to pounce down upon its 
prey — ‘‘ the next time the man comes here, Matilda, see 
to it we have fresh roast-pork. We’ll teach him ! we’ll 
teach him ! ” 

“But, my dear,” expostulated his wife, “that would 
hardly be the thing. I really think, perhaps, he really 
wouldn’t like it, you know.” 

“ And what if he wouldn’t ? ” said the farmer. “ Bo 
you suppose that I’m going to do what he likes ? — going 
to submit to priestcraft like that ? — ^like a woman ? He’s 
none too good to eat what other folks eat.” 

Whether, theoretically, Mrs. Gobblupp agreed with 
a statement on the part of her partner so orthodox and 
distinctively Protestant as this, I do not know. But, 
practically, she had not a little worldly pride, and had 
her own ideas about the kind of hospitality that ought to 
be furnished at her own table — especially to a guest who 
paid as many visits as the Bev. Mr. Thompson. Ac- 
cordingly, the next time that he came to dine with her, 
although she did not dare to go directly against the will 
of her lawful lord, expressed so emphatically, with his 
fork in his hand, and that too held in ominous suspense 
above the onions, she managed by a little womanly tact 
— ^by an arrangement made ostensibly to prevent a lack 
of variety — to save both her own credit and the pastor’s 
conscience. For he, according to his own confession. 


14 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


had been tempted, more than once on a similar occasion, 
to indulge both in skepticism and in plagiarism, and to 
repeat a grace of which he had heard : “ O Lord, if thou 
canst bless under the Gospel what thou didst curse under 
the Law, enable us to receive benefit from this, as well 
as from all other dispensations of thy Providence.” 

However, all this happened later. At present, my 
readers must turn from the savory suggestions of roast- 
pork, in order to snuff the steaming dishes and quaff the 
refreshing drinks of the Chartville church-festival, and 
this we can do, too, without having to pay our one 
dollar for our “ admittance-fee, supper included.” It is 
well enough for cynics to fiout such entertainments, after 
all is over, after everything is cold, and has been digested. 
But how about it when everything is hot and fragrant ? 
Aha, Mr. Gobblupp and Mr. Goosnek, how about it then ? 
Didn’t it seem savory ? Didn’t you have a little charity 
for Esau ? And then the way, too, in which the whole 
thing was laid out ! All those clean, white table-cloths, 
and the cakes and candies and salads and fiowers, and the 
bright pretty girls bowing and blushing behind them ! 
Didn’t you almost wish Chartville were in Turkey, so 
that, without sin, you could look forward to a paradise 
something like that ? Whatever you may have thought, 
I know that so much sweetness and beauty were not lost 
on the Chartville community in general. They fiocked 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


15 


about those tables just like so many bees about flower- 
beds ; and they buzzed a good deal louder, and they — I 
was going to say, stung — ^but we must not anticipate. 

Just as Deacon Fleischbottom — a short, thick-set man, 
with a chin protruding from his face hke a cow-catcher 
from a locomotive, but with a large under hp rolling 
down over it that looked a good deal more threatening 
for anything in the shape of beef that might come in its 
way than ever did its iron image — ^just as this man, with 
some turkey, and lobster-salad, and fried oysters, and 
chicken-salad, and tongue-sandwiches, on a plate in his 
hand, and some ice-cream, and whipped cream, and water- 
ice, and wine-jelly, and meringues, and Washington cake, 
and jelly-cake, and fruit-cake, on a plate that he was 
guarding carefully on the bench beside him, was explain- 
ing to Mrs. Beaufort — it was one evidence of the calibre 
of his mind that he supposed the fact needed an explana- 
tion — why he came to entertainments of this sort — ^not be- 
cause he found anything in them “ for a man like him- 
self to enjoy,” but because he considered it to be his 
“ conscientious duty to help sustain any and every effort 
put forth in order to secure a healthful spiritual life in 
the community ” — the buzzing of the people nearest the 
door ceased for a moment, as they caught sight of one 
who had just entered it, and was evidently a complete 
stranger to most of those present. 


16 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


Is this to be our hero ? Oh, ye who have found the 
Kev. H, Dickory Thompson (whose mother had been 
a Dickory), with all his marks of good breeding and his 
deferential bearing, only a very commonplace sort of 
a commonplace clergyman, would you not like to have 
me introduce to your notice now a form decked out with 
the plumes and spurs fitted to command, even though 
they might not — as some of you younger ladies might 
desire — engage your attentions? Well, I will try to do it. 

Behold then a young man of medium size, straight 
and not too broad, with a fiorid complexion, an abundant 
quantity of brown hair, a full soft beard, and mustache 
of the same color, and remarkably genial-looking eyes 
and mouth, when, as at the present moment, he is smil- 
ing. He wears no plumes nor spurs ; but if a civilian 
will be satisfied with a military man who is lacking these 
appendages, everything else will appear as it should. 
He is dressed in the uniform of a captain ; for he has 
just returned from the civil war, which, fortunately for 
the girls whose experience with him we are about to 
relate, has just been brought to a close. 

“ Who is he ? ” passes around the room like the escap- 
ing breath of one common aspiration. 

But, a moment later, some of the mothers glance a 
little nervously in the direction of their daughters. They 
have heard his opening remark. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


17 


“Well, Dick, old boy, bow are you? You seem to be 
having a rather rum time of it here!” — and this ad- 
dressed to the Kev. H. Dickory Thompson ! 

“ Hush, hush ! ” replied that gentleman in an under- 
tone. “ I’m mighty glad to see you. Will ; but don’t 
forget that I’m on exhibition here ; and we can’t let all 
the folks inside the green-room — I haven’t time to stop 
and talk now. Let me give you an introduction to some 
of the girls.” 

“ Ay, ay ! ” said Will, “ a dozen introductions ! That’s 
just the sort of campaign I’m in for, at present.” 

But when the pastor turned to select the one to be 
indicated as, in his estimation, the most likely to prove 
entertaining, he was somewhat disconcerted. Throughout 
the length and breadth of all that room, it seemed to him 
as if there were not a single girl whose eyes were not now 
fixed upon him. Could he introduce his friend to one of 
them without incurring a risk of offending all the others ? 
But just as his brow was beginning to redden with the 
blood that had rushed there to supply the demand that 
had been made upon his brain, in order to conceive of a 
mode of escape from this dilemma. Providence came to 
his rescue. Providence in the person of Deacon Fleisch- 
bottom. 

It is well that this gentleman never had explained to 
him to what extent, on this occasion, he had proved to 


18 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


be an instrumental agent in averting the discord threaten- 
ing Chartville congregation. He had none too much hu- 
mility before this ; and the knowledge of what he had now 
done, fully realized, might have crushed out all the little 
of this grace that still remained in him. The way in 
which he saved Chartville, as, in old time, some god, by 
snatching the apple out of the hand of Paris, might have 
saved Troy, was in this wise : When, in common with the 
others, he had noticed that the talking in the room had 
suddenly ceased, and, looking up, had seen the glances of 
the girls all turned toward the door, which happened to 
be directly back of him, for once in his life he had al- 
lowed his curiosity to get the better of his prudence ; for 
once in his life, in violation of a principle that he had 
always strenuously maintained, he had allowed the allure- 
ments of the external to cause him to forget those of the 
internal. 

In the excitement of the moment, he had forgotten 
all about that plate of ice-cream, and whipped cream, and 
water-ice, and wine- jelly, and meringues, and Washington 
cake, and jelly-cake, and fruit-cake, so cozily placed at his 
side, and resting, alas, so treacherously ! upon the dextral 
corner of his Sabbath-day coat-tail. In a briefer interval 
of time than it has taken to narrate the circumstance, he 
had gratified his own curiosity ; but this only at the ex- 
pense of rendering himself a new object of curiosity. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


19 


destined to introduce still further the element of variety 
into the otherwise monotonous drift of the evening’s en- 
tertainment. With an ominous crash, Mrs. Goosnek’s 
soup-plate, heaped so full of dainties, had been dashed 
upon the floor, and Mrs. Beaufort’s new silk gown, just 
over it, could be likened to nothing but an after-dinner 
dish-cloth. That lady, moreover, in the repulsion of the 
shock, had flung herself backward, only to be aroused to 
the consciousness that she was resting in the arms of her 
pastor’s military friend. Seeing her so situated, already 
on terms of such apparent intimacy, what was left for the 
pastor except to say, the while he was trying to preserve 
the proper equilibrium between a blush for her and a 
burst of laughter for himself, “Mrs. Beaufort, allow me 
to introduce my friend, Captain Loring?” 


CHAPTEE II. 


SOME FISH, SEEMING TIRED OF BITING, ARE DRAWN IN BY 
A NET. 

The report of the catastrophe mentioned in the first 
chapter had soon brought a crowd of people about the 
chief sufferer. A.mong the first to arrive had been Mrs. 
Beaufort’s two daughters, Bessie and Martha, anxious to 
do all in their power to wash their mother’s skirts of any 
reflections that they otherwise might have continued to 
cast on the somewhat comprehensive scope of Deacon 
Fleischbottom’s plans for the impletion of his inner man. 

The mother, of course, introduced her daughters to 
the stranger. As she mentioned the name of Martha, 
unusually admiring glances were exchanged between this 
young lady and the captain. Upon seeing these, a nature 
less generous than that of the pastor — who, as has been 
intimated, was also wont to cast admiring glances in the 
direction of the same young lady — ^might have experi- 
enced a twinge of jealousy. As it was, he was not a 
woman — ^by which I mean, of course, that his sensibilities 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


21 


were not very keen nor his insight very penetrating ; and 
he was only conscious of a feeling of satisfaction that his 
two friends had become acquainted. 

Martha Beaufort was a young lady in every way given 
to demonstrations. She was a person of strong preju- 
dices, and, on certain occasions, evidently took delight in 
displaying them, not only in her words, but also through 
eccentric little adjustments of her forehead, eyes, lips, 
head, shoulders, and whole frame. At the same time, 
with those whom she liked, these traits were not disagree- 
able. They were interesting ; they were charming. There 
was something so confiding in the spirit that she mani- 
fested when she told one how she hated other people, 
something so sympathetic in her bearing, that her pres- 
ence seemed to act like sunshine on one’s intellectual and 
spiritual energies. It was this, undoubtedly, that had 
made her so attractive to the pastor. 

As for her personal appearance, it was just of a kind 
to set off well the traits that have been mentioned. She 
was of medium height, well-developed though only nine- 
teen years of age, and of a blond complexion. Her 
features, while not sufficiently regular to answer all 
requirements of beauty, were, nevertheless, peculiarly fas- 
cinating because cast into shade by the peculiar bright- 
ness of her eyes. These might have been called blue, but 
there was in them, more than in any other eyes that I 


22 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


ever saw, that constantly changing color and expression 
that seems to say, “ I trust you — no, I don’t,” which, 
because it sets a man to thinking and keeps him at it, is 
more likely perhaps to awaken his interest in a woman 
than any other charm that she can possess. 

As for the captain, his first thought on seeing her 
was, “ I must have met this girl before — no ; or, if I 
have, she’s grown a good deal prettier. By Jove ! but 
she’s the prettiest thing I ever saw.” 

“ You seem to be having an overfiow of good things 
here to-night,” he said. 

“We are,” she answered, laughing. “You came in, 
and it proved too much for us.” 

“ The last straw, eh, to break the camel’s back ? ” 

“ !Now please,” she said, with a little movement that 
an actress would have envied — she was bending her own 
back almost double trying to reach her mother’s skirt — 
“ you mustn’t add an insult to the injury, you know.” 

“ Let me atone for it by giving you some help, then,” 
he answered ; and he took the basin from her side, as if 
about to go and fetch more water. But of course, as he 
was a stranger, some one else had to go and do the busi- 
ness for him. He was not loath to be left there with the 
ladies ; and, while he was left there, you may rest assured 
that he did not slight his opportunities. His eyes, as 
became one fresh from a school in which he had been 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


23 


trained to watch the acts of those each side of him, were 
working vigorously. He had noticed soon the size of 
these young ladies’ hands and arms, and how they used 
them ; the backs of their heads, and how they had done 
up their hair, as well as many other little arrangements 
and adjustments, traits and graces, that can only be re- 
vealed when a woman is at work, and which, when they 
have been revealed to a bachelor, are apt to make him 
feel that he has been placed on a footing of especial inti- 
macy with her. 

And so when, at the end of her task, Martha Beau- 
fort turned her eyes on him, and took his arm for a little 
promenade, it seemed to the captain that her face ex- 
pressed — and he thought that it was very natural and 
appropriate that it should express — a feeling of intimacy 
precisely similar to that which he himself had experi- 
enced. But a moment later they had passed the pastor. 
“ Dear me ! ” she cried, as she suddenly snatched her 
hand from his arm ; “ but I must go back there to my 
table. I had forgotten all about it.” 

The captain turned about, quite startled by her sud- 
den exclamation, and now for the first time saw in her 
eyes the trustless look of which I have spoken. Well,” 
he thought to himself, “ this creature has the power of 
flying about fifty thousand miles away from a man in a 
single second ; ” and he seriously had it in his mind to 


24 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


hum, “ Thou art so near and yet so far,” but he did not 
do it. As we shall find, he reserved his musical propen- 
sities to be displayed at a later stage in the evening’s 
entertainment. 

He began to talk with Miss Bessie Beaufort, who 
happened at this moment to be standing near him. He 
found her very different from her sister. She was a 
quiet, self-contained, but withal a very cheerful-hearted 
brunette, a little over twenty years of age, with rich, 
dark, wavy hair, a face too finely grained perhaps to be 
what is termed striking, and earnest though not brilliant 
hazel eyes, which seemed — as the pastor always said, and 
the captain afterward agreed with him — to be perpetually 
looking out for something good to do, and for somebody 
good to do it with. 

By this, however, is not meant, as some of my readers 
may infer, that she was looking out for some one who 
would marry her. It was understood by those who knew 
the family well that any obligation to posterity of this 
sort, that a woman possessed of traits like her own might 
have, was about to be fulfilled in her espousal to an ear- 
nest, enterprising gentleman, by the name of Gaspack, to 
make the acquaintance of whom, in a following chapter, 
is one of the pleasures held in reserve, as a reward for 
the person who will continue to persevere in his attempt 
to read through the present volume. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


25 


Miss Bessie smiled at Martha and the captain as her 
sister left him, as much as to say, “ It’s an old trick, cap- 
tain ; don’t he frightened by it ; ” then she took his empty 
arm as he offered it, and marched him roimd and round 
the room ; and, because she was a right good-natured 
person, or perhaps because she was herself engaged, 
she introduced him on the way, as if to console him 
for her sister’s conduct, to almost every girl who was 
present. 

What the captain said and did when introduced thus 
there is no necessity of my detailing. When a yoimg 
man meets a young woman in critical moments such 
as these, the story of the two is always very similar. 
To some of these Chartville girls the captain merely 
bowed ; some he complimented ; with some he took a 
promenade ; and with some he stopped to eat or drink. 
It was only toward the latter part of the evening that 
anything unusual happened. At that time a general 
feeling of depression seemed to have fallen on the gath- 
ering. Perhaps they aU felt weighed down by the 
amount of material provided for the community in gen- 
eral, which each, like Deacon Fleischbottom, had felt it 
his individual duty to stow away in himself in particular. 
Whatever may have been the cause, it was noticed that, 
when the people had ceased eating and helpiug them- 
selves at the tables, their mouths and limbs had ceased 


26 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


moving altogether; when the dishes before them had 
been emptied, everything else seemed empty. Although 
everybody felt that it was not quite time to go home, or 
at least ought not to be, the wives began to suggest that 
their houses were empty, the husbands that their carriages 
were empty, the parents that their pockets were empty, 
and the children that their plates were empty. The girls, 
leaning against the wall in one part of the room, seemed 
to be giving most doleful intimations that their hearts 
were empty, and the boys, against the wall in another 
part of it, that their brains were empty. Of course one 
would scarcely have expected it to take a long time to 
exhaust these latter, but it was really sad, so early in the 
evening, to see so many human beings stalled against the 
walls like so many cattle. Alas ! the people of Chart- 
ville, who had forgotten all their rivalries and class-dis- 
tinctions when crowding together so eagerly to dispose of 
the dainties loaded upon those tables, were beginning to 
separate, each from each, with as much stiffness and as 
many struts as the rival peacocks and roosters after they 
have snatched up the crumbs that have fallen from a 
kitchen-window. 

It was at this stage, disheartening in its forebodings 
of failure to all who cared to see the festival prove a suc- 
cess, that Will Loring, like another Marcus Curtins, leaped 
into the gap that separated the different elements of 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


27 


Chartville society, and bronglat about a state in wbicb 
there was no more emptiness. In order to do this, how- 
ever, he did not give up his life, only his dignity. He 
first escorted Miss Martha Beaufort to the melodeon, and 
asked her to play for him a rousing war-chorus. Then 
he took a large bouquet, stuck it in his military cap, put 
the cap on his head, offered one of his arms to Bessie 
Beaufort, whose position was at one extreme of Chartville 
society, and the other to Susan Gobblupp, whose position 
was at the other extreme, and started off on a promenade 
around the room, calling upon all the boys to follow suit. 
At the same time he led off in the chorus that they heard 
played on the melodeon. Before long, a good many in 
the room had joined them. Then he stepped out of the 
ranks, and began giving them military orders, and 
marched them around and around and around, until 
everybody in the whole room had joined in the frolic. 
Even Deacon Fleischbottom had left his last dish of ice- 
cream, to trot along, like a representative of the ambu- 
lance department, in the rear. 

Of course, this all seems very stupid to teU of ; but 
if you had seen those young fellows, with all the bouquets, 
big and little, stripped from the tables, and stuck into 
their hats; if you had seen all the people shouldering 
canes, and brooms, and parasols, and umbrellas, like so 

many muskets; if you had caught sight of the girls 
2 


28 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


dancing along beside the men, and trailing tbeir white 
robes after them, swept on like so many billows of sea- 
foam above each of which was springing a Yenus ; and, 
better than all, if yon had listened to the laughter that 
made each chorus end with a shake a good deal more 
hearty than ever you heard at the opera, you too would 
have thought, as all of them did, that they were having 
the rarest sport of the whole season. Then, when they 
had tired of this. Will let them rest, while he mounted 
on one of the benches, and became an auctioneer ; and 
such puns as he managed to bring in, while he was sell- 
ing off the flowers and cakes and candies that were still 
left on the tables, I am sure one seldom hears inside the 
lecture-room of any church. Then, last of all, at the re- 
quest, he said, of many friends, he turned to present to 
the pastor the last large frosted cake that had not been 
cut ; and all through his address, which was just as good 
as though it had been written out and learned, he, every 
now and then, would allude in feeling tones to Mrs. 
Thompson and the children ; and, as the pastor had no 
wife at all, nor, of course, any children, all the folks, 
especially the young ladies, thought the captain’s was the 
funniest sort of speech conceivable. But even that was 
not a bit more funny than what the pastor did. For 
when he had got the cake, he just began and cut it up, 
“ for all his numerous family,” so he said. And then — * 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


29 


and it was noticed that he gave the largest pieces to the 
poorest people — ^he asked them all to help him eat it, 
telling them, if they could not eat it there, to take it 
home with them, “ for you,” said he, “ are aU my family. 
Tes, yes, friends, let us always think and pray and act 
as though we were in fact one family, all children of one 
loving Father in the heavens.” At this, a few, and most 
of them the very ones who had been the merriest just 
before, began to wipe their eyes, though it was not from 
sadness. Then the pastor made a little prayer, and all 
united with him while he sang — 

“ Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” 

Then everybody, yes, I verily believe that everybody 
who was there turned round, and was shaking hands with 
every other person who was present; and there were 
some there who had seen each other in the church on 
almost every Sunday of their lives, and yet had never 
shaken hands before. And so the company parted ; and, 
for half an hour, right merrily the voices from the car- 
riages and wagons, as they drove oE, could be heard ring- 
ing faintly out from the hills and valleys under the bright 
moonlight. There was not one going home, I am con- 
fident, but felt that there had never been an evening 
like this spent before in Chartville church. Nor do I 


30 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


think that one of all the girls who had been present even 
thought that it would be possible to spend another such 
as this, unless, in some way, some one like this Captain 
Loring should be with them. 


CHAPTEE III. 

CERTAIN INFERENCES DRAWN FROM THE FOREGOING EX- 
PERIENCES. 

“ And we owe all this to you,” said the pastor, as he 
stood with his friend in the moonlight, listening to the 
voices from the distant wagons. 

“ Owe it all to me ? ” asked the captain, to whom he 
had spoken. “ How so ? ” 

“ How so ? ” repeated his friend — “ why, because you 
knew enough to get up that ridiculous march and auction, 
just as the chill was coming over the crowd, and stiffen- 
ing everybody, and preparing us to break up, more than 
anything else, like a set of icicles.” 

“Were things getting to be so bad as that?” said 
the captain. “ To teU the truth, I didn’t notice any par- 
ticular chill or stiffness.” 

“ Didn’t notice it ? I thought, of course, you did — 
that that was the very reason why you started up so sud- 
denly, and put an end to it.” 

“ Hot at all.” 


32 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


And yon mean to tell me,” said tlie pastor, that 
those antics of yours were all spontaneous, unprovoked, 
as destitute of reason actually as they appeared to he on 
the surface ? The army must have had a queer effect 
upon you. One often hears of war’s turning human beings 
into brutes, but the brutes aren’t usually apes and kittens, 
are they ? ” 

‘‘ Why shouldn’t a fellow have a good time ? ” 

“ A good time ! Well, if that was your only motive, 
I shall simply write the whole tale out, put it in my In- 
dex Rerum^ and head it, ‘ One more Instance of the 
Intervention of a Special Providence.’ You stick to it, 
then? You’re in earnest? — and you’d received no hint 
how necessary it all was?” 

“ Ho, none whatever, unless — How, let me see — ” 
and the captain paused. “ Perhaps you could say it was 
Bessie Beaufort’s. ’Twas she who asked me to sing an 
army-chorus — ” 

“ Aha ! aha ! and was it she who started you off in 
the march, and hinted that you hook up Sallie Gobblupp 
with your empty arm ? ” 

“ Perhaps you’re right,” said the captain ; “ ’twas a 
mighty small hint, but I couldn’t swear to it that she 
didn’t give it.” 

“ Aha ! aha ! I thought — I thought — ” said the pastor. 

So, my brave commander, you have been outgeneraled 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


33 


here already by a little Chartville woman. N^ever knew 
it, either ! Aha ! my boy, there’s many a captain that 
can stand before a bayonet who can’t withstand the flash 
of a woman’s eye.” 

‘‘ Her eyes a/re mighty dangerous,” said the captain 
— “ aren’t they ? And then her sister Martha’s — whew ! 
they’re enough to take a man right off his feet ! And 
did you see their little sister Mamie’s feet and underpin- 
nings ? By Jove ! it was worth the whole show just to 
get a sight of them ! What’s the use, confound it ! of all 
the grown ones’ wearing those flapping, trailing dresses ? 
One wouldn’t know that they had any feet if he couldn’t 
judge of them — as we have to do of all of them — ^by their 
younger sisters. In a perfect state now — ” 

“Well, well, but we’re not in a perfect state, you know.” 

“I think I do — yes, yes,” said the captain; “but 
that’s no reason — is it ? — for rendering half our race — 
and the prettier half, at that — ^but little better than de- 
formed ? I only meant to say that, with society in a per- 
fect state, the dress would show off natural charms, you 
know, whatever they might be.” 

“Ah! yes, but, you see, the majority of mortals 
haven’t natural charms; and, as the majority rule, of 
course they’re bound to keep their neighbors covered 
up ; so general ugliness shall lose as little as possible 
from contrast with exceptional beauty.” 


34 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


“ Exceptional beauty ! Humpb ! Don’t lose your 
faith ; hold on to a God of general goodness, and only 
issue bans, my pastor, against the exceptional ugliness of 
those who make the fashions. But how about these 
Beaufort girls ? Do you know them well ? ” 

“ Yes — no — ^that is, I thought — I hoped I did, before 
this evening,” said the pastor ; and he told the captain 
briefly something that had happened in the lecture-room 
just after Mrs. Beaufort’s arrival as described in our 
introductory chapter. 

It was to this effect: Mrs. Beaufort, before she had 
arranged upon the tables the contents of her carriage, 
had looked up to him, and remarked, significantly, “ Oh, 
by-the-way, Mr. Thompson, I came early, among other 
things, to get good places at the tables for Bessie and 
Martha. 

The relevancy of this remark must be explained. 

Almost all this day, ever since the men, before going 
to their work in the morning, had helped him place the 
tables where they were, the pastor had spent his time in 
counting over on his fingers the names of different young 
women in his church, and looking at the tables to de- 
cide just where he should station them,— a work that the 
ladies’ committee, with somewhat doubtful propriety, had 
assigned to him. He had been ransacking his brain, too, 
in order to discover methods through which each particular 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


85 


place might be made out to reveal its particularly desir- 
able advantages — ^how, for instance, the place nearest the 
door could be made to appear satisfactory to the Gob- 
blupp girls, whose nervous natures were always prompting 
them to desire to see everything the very first moment 
that it occurred, and then to take part in it — and how 
the place behind the stove could be made to appear 
equally satisfactory to the Goosneks, whose slender shoul- 
ders and elevated heads were always reminding them of 
the dangerous tendency of an undue exposure to currents 
of air, especially when coming from behind. These are 
only two instances out of fifty serving to evince the deli- 
cate nature of those diplomatic relations that the ap- 
proach of the church-festival had caused suddenly to 
spring up between this very inexperienced pastor and 
the not altogether inexperienced ladies of his congrega- 
tion. 

In making his arrangements, it had happened that 
the pastor, unfortunately for him in his present encoun- 
ter with Mrs. Beaufort, had made up his mind to assign 
two rather inferior places to these very daughters of hers 
about whose destined positions she was now manifesting 
her anxiety. They were generous-hearted, self-sacrific- 
ing, Christian women, and — what was more important in 
the present case — perfectly secure in their own social 
position, and certain to attract more attention than any 


3G 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


others in the room, no matter where they should be sta- 
tioned. If given inferior places, they, as he had thought, 
would not have the same reasons that others might have 
for considering themselves to be slighted. Besides this, 
he had been confident that he knew enough of their 
modes of thinking to feel assured that they would appre- 
ciate what he had done, and why he had done it, as soon 
as he should tell them candidly his reasons. 

So much for the daughters. But now, unexpectedly, 
he found himself called upon to deal, not with them, but 
with the mother ; and this desire of hers, just expressed, 
to secure good places at the tables, had revealed a trait in 
her character upon which he had failed to calculate. 

“ I’ve been thinking of places for different persons,” 
he said, as if to give himself time to consider just how 
he should answer her. 

“ And where were you going to put Bessie and Mar- 
tha ? ” asked the mother. 

As the pastor looked up, he noticed within hearing 
distance the sexton’s wife, dusting off some benches. He 
recalled that, a short time before this, in a moment of un- 
guarded confidence, he had satisfied what had then ap- 
peared to him to be the innocent curiosity of this woman, 
by giving her the very information now solicited by Mrs. 
Beaufort. He recalled, too, that he had taken no little 
pleasure in the gratification that this woman had seemed 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


37 


to derive from the fact that daughters of one like herseK, 
in low station, were to receive at his hands just as much 
consideration as those of the ‘‘ first lady ” in the parish. 
Evidently, in the presence of a woman who had mani- 
fested this gratification, no change of front, in view of the 
advance of Mrs. Beaufort upon the scene of action, was 
possible, even if his intuitions had been quick enough to 
perceive the expediency of such a course. 

“ I thought,” he said, ‘‘ that this would be a nice place 
for them, over here.” He did not dare to tell the mother 
more than this. He did not dare to acknowledge to her 
even that the place was not nice. 

“ What — my daughters — over there — in the corner ? ” 
said Mrs. Beaufort ; and she gave him a look that seemed 
to imply that, if that were the way in which her offspring 
were to be treated, she had made a great mistake in 
getting him called to her church, as well as in bringing 
so many contributions to its festival ; and that he would 
make a great mistake if he were to suppose that she 
would ever do anything of the same sort for him in the 
future. 

The admirer of her daughter saw that look, and so, 
to do him justice, did the pastor of her church ; and, 
during his brief sojourn among this people, he had al- 
ready become acquainted with one or two women in 
whom the powers of analysis had not been sufficiently 


38 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


developed to enable them to separate a pastor from a 
church or a church from a pastor. He was prepared, 
therefore, to comprehend the situation at once, to see 
clearly the danger that threatened both himself and the 
flock over which he had charge. With this came also a 
dim conception that, by frankly explaining his real mo- 
tives, he might ward the danger off; at least, that he 
might prepare himseK, in a way that otherwise would 
be impossible, for unfolding by-and-by his real motives 
to the two young ladies, whose good opinions of him- 
self h-e was anxious, for more reasons than one, to pre- 
serve. But, notwithstanding this suggestion of a method 
of retreat from his difficulty that would have saved his 
honor in the future, if it had not secured his success in 
the present, he had failed, as he told the captain, to avail 
himself of it. Why had he done so ? 

You and I, reader, do not understand a sensitive man 
if we always attribute his actions to motives that lie 
within the sphere, or are under the control, of intellect. 
I have seen a child stand mute before a teacher who was 
threatening him, and make no effort, apparently, to recite 
a lesson that he knew perfectly. It was simply a phys- 
ical impossibility for the child to utter a syllable. So, 
now it had been simply a physical impossibility for this 
young pastor, a moment before — to his own conceptions 
—so full of diplomacy, to utter to Mrs. Beaufort one sylla- 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


39 


ble of what lie had previously rehearsed to himself as the 
language to he addressed to her daughters. In deciding 
upon this language, had he been presuming too much 
upon his intimacy with them, or upon his knowledge of 
their characters, or upon their sympathy with his own 
plans ? Had he been too sure that they would share his 
desire to have individuals sacrifice themselves for the 
good of the community ? On the whole, had it been an 
altogether safe thing for him to choose for these two the 
particular sphere in which they, and not himself, were 
to do the sacrificing? Was he afraid that Mrs. Beaufort 
would resent such a display on his part of knowledge of 
her daughters, or intimacy with them ? — ^that she would 
dislike him for his presumption ? The sequel must de- 
cide. At present, it only concerns us to know that he 
went on to make matters worse by saying : 

“ Eeally, Mrs. Beaufort, I am sorry you don’t like the 
places.” 

“ Of course I don’t,” said that lady ; “ who would ? ” 

“ But, Mrs. Beaufort, somebody must have them.” 

It was this last expression which, as he was now talk- 
ing with the captain, he recalled, and which, he said, had 
given, as it seemed to him, very grave offense. It is true 
that, when he had recognized this fact, he had assigned 
the daughters other places. It is true that, for a time 
after he had done so (like a great many others who, when 


40 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


they have put themselves to inconvenience for the sake 
of their neighbors, suppose that they have necessarily 
conciliated them), he had hoped, inasmuch as he had 
made everything wrong in his plans with reference to 
everybody else, that he had made everything right with 
reference to the Beauforts. But now that the excite- 
ment of the evening had passed by, especially as he re- 
called Mrs. Beaufort’s manner when they had parted, he 
had again become solicitous. 

Of course, the captain, like a man just home from the 
army, only laughed to hear this story, told his friend he 
had the blues — a mere reaction from the worry and ex- 
citement of the day — and recommended an extended nap 
next morning. 

But, after all, the pastor knew a good deal more of 
women. He had reason to be frightened. To think 
that, in the sense in which he had used the word, he had 
termed the daughters of the wealthiest family in the 
church “ somebody ! ” "Would Mrs. Beaufort soon forget 
it ? His premonitions told him ‘‘ no.” And if, within a 
week or two, he could have overheard the conversations 
in the Chartville parlors, something more substantial 
than his premonitions would have confirmed their tes- 
timony. 

As a fact, Mrs. Beaufort never tired for weeks of 
letting her intimate friends and others know that, what- 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


41 


ever they might think of the Rev. Mr. Thompson, she, 
at least, had known of instances in which he had proved 
himseK to be inconsiderate, if not even ungentlemanly. 
And inasmuch as, during her many insinuations with 
reference to the subject, she never deigned to state the 
facts that had led to her conclusions, not a few with 
whom she talked became convinced that they must have 
been of a nature very serious indeed and probably shock- 
ing. In fact, O my malicious reader, whenever you wish 
to do a vast amount of backbiting, just remember that 
the suggestion of another’s fault is to the statement of 
it very much what steam is to the water from which it 
is generated. In the vapory form, much noise is often 
made, and space filled up by that which really is no bigger 
than a single drop. Many of those who heard Mrs. Beau- 
fort talk went away to shake their heads and speak in 
riddles just as she did ; and as all of them were anxious 
to be thought to be on confidential terms with the fore- 
most lady in the village, not a single one would intimate 
that she might not be able to tell all the facts about the 
case, if only she had not been constituted — well, too deli- 
cately, if you choose — to do so. Alas for the infiuence 
of Mrs. Beaufort ! Alas for the influence of the Rev. H. 
Dickory Thompson ! Alas for his little love affair in 
Mrs. Beaufort’s family ! Alas for the spiritual interests 
of his congregation, that were all dependent on the re- 


42 


MODEKN i'lSHERS OF MEN. 


spect that the community would continue to have for the 
judgment and the character of its young pastor ! 

With such interests at stake then, with such at stake 
in every village in our land, what is to he done when 
two such sensitive beings come together, intent to do the 
right, with no excuse for quarreling, and yet each so in- 
fluenced by physical temperament that the one is kept 
from saying what he would like to say, and the other 
from understanding what she would like to understand ? 
I do not know, until at last all such shall come to com- 
prehend more thoroughly some simple facts concerning 
human nature ; until they shall come to read, perhaps — a 
remark inserted solely for the beneflt of my publishers — 
their share of tales portraying traits of human character, 
like those to be unfolded here. Till then, can we ever 
cease to have the gravest apprehensions that, though pas- 
tors may preach and people may pray, the malice in the 
pews will flow on forever ? 


CHAPTEE lY. 

AN EXCUESION TO A VEEY PEOMISING EISHING-GEOTJND, 
TOGETHEE WITH SOME DISCUSSIONS ON METHODS OF 
FISHING IN GENEEAL. 

‘‘Well, all I have to say,” said the captain, after his 
friend had ended the story of his troubles as related in the 
preceding chapter — “all I have to say is that that ladies’ 
committee imposed on y ou. What business of yours was 
it to assign the places at the tables? If you keep on 
acting the part of a Paris here, giving decisions upon the 
relative charms of your female parishioners, why, they’ll 
all have you by the hair in no time. You’ll be bald, my 
boy, before your day.” 

“ But, as I told Mrs. Beaufort, ‘ somebody ’ must do 
it ; and I don’t know but I’d rather do it myself than 
trust it to anybody else.” 

“ Why must ‘ somebody ’ do it ? ” asked the captain. 

“To prevent friction when the people come to- 
gether.” 


44 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


“ But, confound it ! what’s the use of their coming 
together at all ? ” 

‘‘What’s the use?” said the pastor, “l^ow, don’t 
ask that, Will, after your experience to-night. What’s 
the use of bringing them together on Sunday ? Isn’t it 
something, don’t you think, to make them keep step as 
you did in that march, and thus make their hearts keep 
time too ? — and, because they have once experienced it, to 
make them believe in sympathy, and in a life controlled 
by the principle of sympathy ? I tell you it’U be an in- 
spiration to good to some of these people for a year, only 
to remember what happened because you and they came 
into contact, for a few moments to-night, with two such 
angels on the earth as those Beaufort girls.” 

“ So, so, and I — Well, that’s a new role, isn’t it? 
There was an angel, then ? It guided Captain Loring, 
and he marshaled Chartville congregation on to a place 
where they could revel in an experience — transient, to be 
sure — of heavenly bliss. It makes a poor man wish, con- 
found it! that he hadn’t enjoyed the sport so hugely. 
Then he could claim a little merit for his self-denial.” 

“Well, Will, but that’s religion : to find your own en- 
joyment in making others happy — in the broadest sense, 
I mean.” 

“ Now, Dick, hold on. You young men go too fast. 
The good old way, you know, was to find your cross in 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


45 


making others Grosser. But, to tell the truth, I rather 
like your view. It’s enough to make one feel like com- 
ing here and joining your church himself.” 

And, seriously. Will, why can’t you come out here ? 
There’s nothing to prevent it, is there ? You could go 
to the city every day, you know. There’s another room, 
too, vacant now in the very house where I am stopping, 
and we could have the jolliest sort of bachelor life.” 

“By Jove! that is an idea,” said the captain; “and 
then — there are the Beaufort girls.” 

“ Yes, yes ; and the Gobblupp, and the Goosnek — ” 

“ Confound it all 1 why aren’t you jealous of my 
charms? Aren’t you afraid I’U carry off this Beaufort 
girl?” 

“ I ? ” said the pastor. “ Humph ! I ought to be 
afraid perhaps for your sake, for fear she’ll carry you 
off ; but, to tell the truth, I haven’t any special interest 
in the one that seems to have begun that work with you 
to-night.” 

“What! Hot in Bessie, eh? Well, then, perhaps 
in Martha ? What ? ” 

“ Come, come, you’re getting personal ; and here’s our 
house, and, long ago, we ought to have been in bed.” 

“ I wish you luck, old boy,” said the captain ; “ and, 
mind you. I’ll stand by you now, whatever comes — what- 
ever comes, old boy.” 


46 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


Did Will know liow mncli he was promising ? 

On examining into the matter, the captain found that, 
so far as concerned his attendance on the law-lectures, 
which was to be his chief employment for the present, it 
would be fully as convenient for him to live in Chartville 
and visit the city every day as to live in the city itself ; 
and, in other respects, he knew that, by doing so, he 
should be far more comfortably situated than if he were 
obliged to put up with the smells or the swells of a cheap 
metropolitan boarding-house. Besides this, he looked 
forward with no little pleasure to the prospect of renew- 
ing his friendship with his old college room-mate, Thomp- 
son ; and at the church-festival he had had a glimpse of 
Chartville society sufficient to lead him to believe that 
there were other possibilities in store for him, of a nature 
far more delightful than any that a stranger would be apt 
to discover in a large city. So he decided, for the pres- 
ent, to accept the invitation of the pastor, and took up 
his residence with him. 

It was not long before he had an opportunity of being 
placed on a footing of comparative intimacy with the 
Beaufort family. As he and the pastor were walking 
together one day, the Beaufort carriage overtook them. 
It stopped, and, after greetings had been exchanged, Mrs. 
Beaufort went on to say that Mr. Gaspack, a young man 
very deeply interested in church work and in aU matters 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


47 


of reform, as well as a very great favorite of her late hus- 
band’s — a son of an old friend of his — ^was coming from 
a neighboring town to spend the evening with them, and 
“ he has expressed a wish,” she said to the pastor, “ to 
make your acquaintance. We should be happy,” she 
added, with a gracious smile to the captain, “ to have 
both of you drop in upon us.” 

Of course, the two young gentlemen, like most young 
gentlemen solicited in such a way, were only too glad to 
accept the invitation. 

“ And now,” said the pastor to his friend, as the car- 
riage drove away from them — “now we shall have an 
opportunity of learning the truth about Bessie Beaufort’s 
taste. This Gaspack is the fellow that’s engaged to her.” 

“ Aha ! — so this is the man you were telling me of ? ” 
said the captain. “ Good luck for both of us, then, that 
we can form his acquaintance — ^that is, if he’s as fine a 
fellow as she is.” 

“ I never have heard a word about him,” said the pas- 
tor, “ except from the Beauforts. They think he’s a fine 
fellow, of course — ^that is, all of them except Martha per- 
haps, though I’ve no good reasons, either, for supposing 
that she doesn’t hke him, too. ” 

“Well, well, we’ll judge of him for ourselves,” said 
the captain. 

So that evening, after both the expectant visitors 


48 


MODEKN FISHERS OF MEN. 


had made themselves as immaculate, so far as concerned 
the outer man, as though they were about to take part in 
some old-time religious ceremony, they were duly ushered 
into the splendor of the Beaufort mansion. 

As they were taking off their hats and overcoats in 
the hall, they heard the sounds of a gruff male voice, in 
which the nasal tones were exceedingly prominent, issu- 
ing from the adjacent parlor. At first they were appre- 
hensive that they had arrived at the house sooner than 
they had been expected — ^that, in some way, their visit 
was untimely. They thought that some religious or re- 
formatory meeting must be in session there — that some 
one must be delivering some sort of an exhortation, or, 
what, from the prevalence of the downward inflections, 
seemed more likely, administering to his audience some 
sort of a rebuke. All that they could make out of the 
general drift of the speech, however, was contained in 
expressions like these, somewhat too freely interspersed 
throughout it : “I assure you,” “ I told him,” “ I know,” 
I am certain,” etc. As they moved toward the door, 
that stood partly ajar, they caught sight of the very red 
cheeks of a very full face, with very wide eyes and black 
side-whiskers, all of which moved up and down very em- 
phatically, for the purpose, apparently, of keeping time 
to a very thick-set hand, that moved up and down pre- 


MODERN FISHERS OP MEN. 


49 


ciselj in the same way in front of a very thick-set body, 
that had probably experienced about thirty winters, in 
every one of which circumstances perhaps had rendered 
it necessary to consume a vast amount of easily-assimi- 
lated nutriment. In front of this body at least three 
female heads happened at this moment to be all bending 
slightly forward, as though in an act of reverence ; and, 
besides this, to be all moving shghtly, with precisely the 
same impetus, upward and downward at every nod of 
that fat face and stroke of that fat hand. One might 
have taken the w^hole party for a set of wax figures 
moved by mechanism. 

“By Jove! did you ever see anything hke that?” 
said the captain. “ Isn’t it the frog that ‘would a-wooing 
go V hTo wonder the fellow has taken in the women. 
His mouth looks big enough to take them in, and us too, 
and it has blow enough probably to make us as pliant to 
his breath as they are. I swear I never see such a swell 
but I feel that I’d be wilhng to give half my life to be 
allowed to prick and explode him. If it’s Gaspack, 
Heaven defend us, and preserve poor Bessie 1 However, 
we must venture in.” 

The lady of the house came forward with her two 
daughters, smiling and gracious, to welcome them. After 
they had shaken hands, “ Here,” said Mrs. Beaufort, “ is 
our friend, Mr. Gaspack. Captain Loring— Mr. Gas- 


50 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


pack. And this, Mr. Gaspack, is our pastor, of whom you 
have heard us speak — Mr. Thompson. By-the-way, Mr. 
'rhoinpson, 1 believe that you have never met Miss Inth- 
w.i/, a cousin of ours who is living with us now, a great 
id.nirer of yours, I assure you. Allow me to make you 
..cqnainted.” 

“ I’m sure I’m very happy to meet Mr. Thompson,” 
said that young lady, with a nervous toss of some exceed- 
ingly robust red ringlets, and twirling persistently a black 
cord that passed around her neck, and to the end of 
which dangled a gold pencil-case — “ I’m sure I’m very 
glad to meet you, Mr. Thompson. I believe I’ve always 
been away from home or out of the room when you have 
been here before ; and, come to think of it, just the last 
time you called I was up-stairs giving lessons to the little 
girls; and they were studying the catechism too, and 
there was a question too that I would have given worlds 
to have had you answer. I forget what it was now — oh 
no, I don’t, either; I should have run down here just 
then if I had only known you were in the house — not 
now, Mr. Thompson — oh no, not now; not now, you 
know. Some time when we’re alone — we’ll discuss it 
then, perhaps.” 

“ By Jove ! a poor country cousin, who’s serving here 
as the governess,” thought Loring, “ and making a dead 
set for the pastor I ” 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


51 


But if the captain had any curiosity at this moment to 
learn more about Miss Inthway from a personal conversa- 
tion with her, it was impossible for him to gratify it. 
The loud tones of Mr. Gaspack, which seemed to grow 
louder and louder the longer any one remained indiffer- 
ent to his eloquence, and to call upon each with an au- 
thority like that which rings from the bugle that sounds 
‘‘ Attention ! ” on a battle-field, were too overpowering 
to admit of much conversation that was not marshaled 
into the line of his leadership. Finally, however, Mr. 
Gaspack paused. But the reader must not suppose that 
it is meant to be insinuated by this remark that the zeal 
of the reformer had abated — ^not at all : the spirit was still 
willing, but the fiesh was weak. Even Mr. Gaspack was 
sometimes short of breath. This time he had paused 
immediately after a sentence to this effect, in which he 
had summed up in what his friends would have called 
his usual masterly manner the substance of a harangue 
unusually vehement. 

“ And so I affirm,” he had declared, ‘‘ and I repeat 
the affirmation, that an individual, in the midst of his 
efforts to ameliorate the condition of mankind, is con- 
stantly pained by renewedly discovering that the natural 
mind neither opens to the appeals of truth, nor the carnal 
heart to the incitements of love.” 

After this very original and startling statement came 
3 


52 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


the usual obeisance, and the expected chorus of “^^o, 
oh no,” from Mrs. Beaufort and Miss Inthway. 

But Mr. Gaspack seemed to miss from this chorus the 
tones of one voice that should have blended with it. He 
gave a questioning glance — why not rather quote the lan- 
guage of his admirers, and say one of his commanding 
looks ? — in the direction of Miss Bessie. The meekest of 
his underlings, thus called to the front, could not have 
ventured to dispute his right to know her thoughts. 
“ That’s very true,” said Bessie, “ only I was thinking 
that sometimes the mistake might be in ourselves. Peo- 
ple don’t always understand us, you know. And then, per- 
haps, one ought to change the form of her own appeal.” 

“ She’s hit the nail on the head now,” thought the 
captain. 

“‘The carnal mind is enmity against God. The 
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God : for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he 
know them, because they are spiritually discerned,’ ” said 
Mr. Gaspack, in his most impressive manner, and gazing 
around the room with very much the air of an Irishman 
who has placed a chip on his shoulder, and is waiting to 
see if any one will have the temerity to knock it off. 

“ Yes ; but who is carnal and who is spiritual ? ” asked 
Bessie, in a half-meditative, half-inquiring way. 

“ ‘ The Spirit itseK beareth witness with our spirits 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


53 


that we are the sons of God.’ Your pastor, surely,” he 
went on to say, with a patronizing wave of the hand in 
the direction of Mr. Thompson — “ your pastor surely has 
unfolded to your consideration the glorious doctrine of 
the assurance of hope.” 

To this the pastor ventured to suggest that his minis- 
try had begun but recently in that neighborhood, and 
that, therefore, he had hardly had time to unfold every 
doctrine in its completeness. “Miss Bessie’s idea,” he 
added, “ was probably something like that of St. Paul’s 
when he said to the Corinthian Christians, ‘Ye are 
carnal,’ and again of himself, ‘ I am carnal ; ’ as though 
he had thought there was a little of both the carnal and 
the spiritual man in all of us, though our general charac- 
ter undoubtedly was determined by the one of the two 
whose promptings we happened generally to obey.” 

“ How can there be anything spiritual in the carnal 
man?” demanded Mr. Gaspack. “‘The ploughing of 
the wicked is sin.’ ” 

“And the eating of the worthy is righteousness,” 
whispered Miss Martha to the captain, with a sly little 
shrug of the shoulders. The words and the whole man- 
ner were so confidential that they quite took his heart. 
“I always knew Dick had good taste,” he thought to 
himself. “ There’s no nonsense about this girl. She un- 
derstands that Gaspack, through and through.” 


54 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


“ I presume it’s so,” said Bessie. “ If they’re very 
wicked, I don’t suppose they’ll be apt to plough very 
well. But it’s always seemed to me that there’s enough 
in people, if you can only get them to doing good once — 
get them interested in it — to cause most of them to come 
out in the end all right.” 

In other words,” said the pastor, “ you believe that 
‘ they that do his will shall know of the doctrine ; ’ that 
is, you beheve that one way — perhaps the best way — of 
learning about true doctrine is to have an experience of 
the results of it when applied to life ; and, of course, ex- 
perience, to be one’s own, must be the result of one’s 
own actions.” 

This expression was evidently about to call forth an- 
other of Mr. Gaspack’s prolonged harangues, when, for- 
tunately, some friend of his was announced, who had 
called to visit him ; and the captain and the pastor had 
the satisfaction of seeing his words suddenly bottled up, 
and then transported impressively into an adjoining room, 
to be poured forth there for the exclusive benefit of the 


new-comer. 


CHAPTER Y. 

SOME LINES THROWN OUT AND FISHING BEGUN, WITH A 
FAIR PROSPECT THAT THE SPORT WILL PROVE INTER- 
ESTING. 

After Mr. Gaspack had retired, the captain turned 
for a time to devote himself to Miss Bessie. Hot that he 
felt drawn toward her more than toward her sister Mar- 
tha ; only he happened at this moment to be sitting at 
her side. In fact, the commentary that, in his own mind, 
he was making on the conversation that had just occurred, 
and on the one that now was following it, was not in all 
its features complimentary. “ She’s unmistakably a blue- 
stocking,” he was saying to himself, “ and given to dis- 
cussion ; and something of a prude, too, or she wouldn’t 
think so much of such a man as Gaspack. She’s pretty, 
though, and it’s a shame that she should throw herself 
away on him. And she’s a shrewd one, too — a very 
shrewd one. He ’ll not get the better of her often. 
That’s a comfort, anyway.” But very soon he had re- 


56 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


solved to break away from her. He saw Miss Intbway 
near him. She was stiU absorbing in herself the whole 
attention of his friend, the pastor. This will never do, 
he thought ; and he recalled that, in the goodness of his 
heart, before they had come there, he had volunteered his 
services, and had promised the pastor to do everything that 
could be done to insure the latter an opportunity of con- 
versing with Miss Martha. So he made an effort, and after- 
ward repeated efforts, to divert Miss Inthway from her 
prey. She shall not, so he thought, appropriate this poor 
man exclusively. But, somehow, all his efforts were no 
sooner made than thwarted — whether by the fascinations 
of Miss Martha, or by the planning of her mother, both 
of whom sat near him and were constantly engaging his 
attention, and so diverting it from Miss Inthway, he 
could not decide, till, later in the evening, just as Mr. 
Gaspack had returned to the room, an incident occurred 
that seemed to solve the question. 

“ Bessie was going to show you, Mr. Gaspack, our 
moonlight view of the river,” Mrs. Beaufort said. It’s 
only a little way down through the meadow, and the girls 
have been thinking, all the afternoon, how much you 
would enjoy it.” 

“How is my chance,” thought the captain, as the two 
who had been addressed rose up to comply with the 
mother’s suggestion. “ Miss Inthway,” he said — he was 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


57 


sitting between her and Martha— “ I think that I ought 
to have a view of this river, too.” 

“ And I too,” said the pastor, rising and looking to- 
ward Martha. 

“ Miss Inthway, dear,” said Mrs. Beaufort, “ I think 
it’s getting a Kttle chilly for me ; won’t you be so good, 
before you go, as to step to the nursery, and to bring 
me down my little plaid shawl ? — Oh ! come to think 
of it, Mr. Thompson, before I forget it, I want to say a 
word to you about something Deacon Fleischbottom told 
me the other day. — Why, Captain Loring, have we kept 
you waiting ? Don’t wait, I beg of you. Martha, I am 
sure, will be most happy to go on with you, and the 
others will follow presently.” 

‘‘ So, so,” thought the captain to himself, as he gave 
his arm to Martha, “ the old lady’s at the bottom of it 
all. She must have found out, then, the pastor’s liking 
for Miss Martha ; and if anybody’s to be mated here ac- 
cording to his own desires, he must begin by checkmating 
certain desires of someone else.” 

If Mrs. Beaufort had been able to read this thought 
in the captain’s mind, and then been able to read his 
thought a moment later, it would not have caused her 
any very great uneasiness, even on the supposition that 
she was as deep a schemer as the captain had supposed. 
Ho one could talk with Captain Loring many minutes 


58 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


without becoming convinced that he was a gentleman. 
And no one could come to reside in Chartville perma- 
nently, and be invited to the Beaufort mansion, before 
the inmates of it had asked a sufficient number of ques- 
tions, and received a sufficient number of answers to be- 
come reasonably assured that there was no risk involved 
in forming the acquaintance. The intimacy with the 
pastor was a sufficient guarantee of the captain’s moral 
character ; and, as for other facts with reference to him- 
self and his family, it is a question whether he would 
have been more indignant or amused could he have been 
made aware with what a degree of minuteness these were 
known already in the household that he was visiting. In 
Mrs. Beaufort’s opinion, it was less objectionable for Mar- 
tha to be thrown in the way of finding an admirer in the 
captain than in the pastor. Whatever had been her object, 
or whether or not she had had any secondary object in 
proposing that Mr. Gaspack and Bessie should go out to 
enjoy the view of the river by moonlight, it was evident 
that a moonlight stroll together on the part of the pastor 
and Miss Martha was not one of the anticipated results 
of her proposal. 

This much seemed perfectly apparent to the captain. 
But he could scarcely think that the fact was owing 
solely to the slight offense that had been given to Mrs. 
Beaufort in connection with the places that had been 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


69 


assigned to her daughters at the festival-tables. Man- 
like, it was impossible for him to conceive that this could 
have turned the tide of her feelings against the pastor 
even sufficiently to cause her to desire to have him rec- 
ognize, if but for a single time, that she was not so great- 
ly pleased to have him pay his attentions to her daughter 
as he, in his presumption, had supposed. Manlike, too, 
the captain therefore came to the conclusion that the 
whole affair was owing mainly to the favorable impres- 
sion that he himself had made upon the family. And so 
his feelings were not altogether those of sorrow for the 
clergy, as, recognizing that he could not refuse to escort 
Miss Martha without appearing rade to her, and making 
a great deal more out of the affair than the circumstances 
warranted, he gave his arm to her, and the two passed 
out of the room together. And having once been fairly 
launched out into the moonlight under these conditions, 
it is hardly necessary for me to inform an intelligent 
reader that whatever scruples he may have had about 
pursuing this course very soon had vanished. When the 
mother of a pretty girl seems to discriminate between 
two men, and to confide her daughter to one of them 
rather than to the other, the one thus treated is simply 
not human if his vanity permit him to have any very 
serious doubt as to the wisdom or propriety of the moth- 
er’s decision. And Martha was such a very pretty girl ! 


60 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


And she was always doing, so instinctively and naturally, 
just what would make a man discover in her something 
of especial interest to himself, personally. For instance, 
when he offered her his arm she did not take it as though 
she shrank from touching him, and would not do so at 
all, were it not a conventional thing that was expected of 
her ; nor did she take it too eagerly, as if to suggest that 
she would like to press up a good deal closer, were that 
not an unconventional thing that was not expected of 
her. She did not refrain from leaning on his arm, as 
though to indicate that she felt abundantly able to take 
care of herself ; nor did she lay hold of it as though she 
hoped that it might prove to be the last straw to save her 
from the overwhelming waves of spinsterdom. She sim- 
ply used in good faith that which had been tendered her, 
and slipped her hand and arm within it, unconscious even 
that they almost touched his heart ! And then she clasped 
her hands together, and leaned upon his arm so gently ! 
He could not be otherwise than conscious all the time 
that she was there ; and yet if she had been a disembodied 
spirit, hers could not have seemed a weight more easy to 
be borne. And when she told him how “ very, very glad 
she was that he had come to live in Chartville, which had 
always been so stupid to her,’’ and how “ very, very much 
she hoped that he would come and see them often,” and 
when, as she said this, her soft, sweet face, and eyes that 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


61 


glistened in the moonlight, looked with such confiding 
glances toward his own, as if she knew that he believed 
and felt and thought precisely as she did herself, is it a 
wonder that the man forgot for a time that he was walk- 
ing with the sweetheart of his friend ? Not God alone, 
believe me, has love for those who put their trust in him. 
Every human being, in the degree in which he has the 
Godlike in him, has the same. This is the reason why 
the maids who cannot show that they have faith in their 
admirers, or the wives that they have faith in their hus- 
bands, or the mothers that they have faith in their sons, 
seldom keep the love of those in whom their affections 
really centre, or infiuence for good their actions. An in- 
dependent, self -asserting woman will repel a man whom 
a clinging and confiding one, with half her intellectual 
power — ay, or physical beauty, either — will continue 
through long years to hold a captive. And so we see 
the reason also why a mother-in-law or a sister-in-law 
need not be mean intrinsically in order to destroy forever 
all one’s possibilities of happiness in married life. She 
only needs to cast an occasional doubt upon the sacred - 
ness — not acquiescence — with which every wife that can 
be loved regards the suggestions of her husband. So, 
too, we see why a parent need not do a thing intrinsically 
wicked in order that her sons may grow to be intrinsical- 
ly bad, at least so far as concerns their relations to her- 


62 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


self. She only needs to believe with all her heart in the 
totalness of their depravity. 

In early life two persons of the same sex often love 
each other passionately, with a love far greater than it is 
possible for either to experience in later life. But, when 
they reach maturity, the “ struggle for existence ” almost 
always forces such as these apart ; if not so, into places 
where they grow to be suspicious of each other, if not 
acknowledged rivals. If, then, they wish to experience 
the love that springs from confidence, they must seek it 
in the other sex, — as least must do so now, and continue 
to do so, up to that expected time, so often prophesied, 
when both sexes shall have attained to manhood. Then, 
perhaps, that which remains of romance will be content to 
dream of the good times past, and to whistle, where no 
lips can pucker in response, some tune whose real refrain, 
if uttered, would be, “ Good-by, Sweetheart.” 

Will Loring, as has been said before, had just come 
back from the war, from a life in which not only the 
army to be fought against, but the army to fight with, 
the emulations of fellow-officers above, about, and beneath 
one, cause the ‘‘struggle for existence” to be perhaps 
the hardest, the suspicions to be the best founded, and 
the rivalries the sharpest that can anywhere be experi- 
enced. No wonder, then, that, as he walked here, gazing 
down upon the face and eyes of this confiding creature at 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


63 


his side, the sensations in his sonl seemed new and strange 
to him, and all the more delightful from their sunny con- 
trast with the smoky clouds of warfare from which he 
had just emerged. What cared he now, with such a 
being at his side, for that moonlight view of the river ? 
He saw in the path before him the dim and disappearing 
forms of Mr. Gaspack and Miss Bessie. He saw, as well, 
a side-path, wandering from the straight one off beneath 
the limbs of full-grown beech-trees. He “ always liked 
to walk in a path like that,” he said ; and then, as he 
thought of the sweet face at his side, as ever and anon it 
had turned up toward his own, he added, temptingly, 
and to look up through the branches into the moon- 
light.” He and his companion both agreed then that it 
would be “ lovely, very lovely now,” to turn aside and to 
walk beneath those trees. At last, as they lingered there, 
and were slowly sauntering to and fro, they heard and 
saw the pastor and Miss Inthway hastening rapidly, like 
two ill-mated colts, with no attempt to keep step, through 
the path that led to the view that they themselves had 
set out to obtain. 

On seeing them, the captain called to mind the fact 
that he was quaffing — what intoxicating draughts ! — from 
another’s vintage. “We must hurry up,” he said, “ and 
find a short cut through the woods, and get to the place 
where we can see the view before they see it.” 


64 


MODERN FISHERS OP MEN. 


Martha scarcely seemed to think the case so urgent. 
She complied with his request with just the slightest hint 
of disappointment. It might mean nothing, to be sure ; 
but yet it might mean everything. “ Can it be possible,” 
the captain thought, “ that she can like me now, almost 
at first sight, as well as or better than she likes the pas- 
tor ? ” "Whether it was the captain’s wish to find out the 
tme answer to this question, to act the part of a friend 
toward the pastor, or merely to gratify his own inherent 
love of fiirting, that controlled his conduct during the rest 
of the evening, it would probably have puzzled him as 
much to determine as it can ourselves. All that we can 
know with certainty is that, from the time when he had 
met with the other couples who had gone to view the 
river, all through his walk back to the house with them, 
and through the hour that he and the pastor spent in the 
parlor after they had returned to the house, he devoted 
himseK wellnigh exclusively to Miss Inthway. Mrs. 
Beaufort and Bessie seemed to be absorbed in the theo- 
logical discussion that finally had waxed wairni between 
Mr. Gaspack and the pastor. These ladies did not need 
his attention. But Martha sat at a distance from them 
silent and alone. He could scarcely have neglected her 
save as he did it, consciously and intentionally. Per- 
haps, then, he deserved the look and the tone that she 
gave him when, at the close of the call, she bade him 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


65 


adieu. The look was a little less soft than usual, and the 
tone had just a little tendency toward what the elocution- 
ist would term the circumflex, as she expressed a hope 
that he would not forget at once their walk together in 
the moonlight. The pastor noticed what she did and 
said, as well as the captain ; and as the two men, who, 
when walking toward the house a couple of hours before, 
had kept up one continuous stream of conversation, 
turned their backs upon it, it was perhaps signiflcant that, 
until they reached their rooms, they uttered scarcely a 
syllable. 


CHAPTEE yi. 

A LITTLE QUIET FISHING, IN WHICH SOME FISH, GREAT 
AND SMALL, ARE CAUGHT. 

‘‘ Good-morning, Captain Loring,” said Miss Bessie 
Beaufort, about eight o’clock on the Sunday morning 
following the visit described in the last chapter. 

“ Good-moming, Miss Beaufort,” replied the captain. 
“ This is quite a surprise. I hadn’t an idea of finding a 
soul I knew on the road at this time on Sunday morning. 
I thought I was entirely out of the fashion in getting 
through breakfast so early. It was such a glorious morn- 
ing, though, I couldn’t stay in.” 

‘‘ They’re not all up at home yet, either,” said Bessie ; 
but I had a little visit to make on the way to church, 
and so came on before them.” 

“ But church doesn’t begin till half-past ten, does it ? ” 

“ ^lo, not the church. I ought to have said ‘ on the 
way to Sunday-school.’ ” 

“ Ah ! yes, the Sunday-school. Is it a large one ? ” 
asked the captain. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


67 


“IsTot nearly so large as it onglit to be,” sbe answered. 
“ Yon know, in a place like this it is bard to get teachers. 
But you’ll see how it is. You’re coming in to help us, of 
course ? ” 

ISTow, if this question had been put in some other 
form — if only Miss Beaufort had said, Can’t you,” or 
“ Could n’t you come in to help us?” or if the identical 
words that she did say had been uttered by the pastor, 
and not by her own sweet voice — the captain would have 
answered “I^o!” at once; and very likely, in language 
somewhat stronger than would ordinarily be used on such 
an occasion, he would have given what he would have 
thought some very convincing reasons for his refusal. 
The truth is that the idea of going into the Sunday-school 
had never entered into his head before this moment. But 
now that it had done so, and had been ushered in with 
the phrase “ of course,” how could he deny that it had 
been there previously without incurring a risk of lower- 
ing himself in the estimation of this lady, who — though 
according to her own standard, it is true — had rated him 
more highly than she should have done ? How could he 
correct her supposition, or reply to her in the negative, 
without incurring a risk of offending her ? Ho woman 
likes to be told point-blank that she has been mistaken. 
Would it not be a little more gentlemanly, therefore — 
possibly, if she should continue to press the case, a 


68 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


little more entertaining to himself — to appear to be un- 
decided ? 

Thoughts like these had been passing through the 
captain’s mind, though none of them had had time to 
assume any very definite shape there, the while he an- 
swered : 

Why, really. Miss Beaufort, my work for the last 
few years has hardly been in this line.” 

“ No,” she said, “ you have been killing people, I 
believe ; and we — well, we are trying to show them how 
to live, you know.” 

“And I’m afraid,” said the captain, “I should be 
rather a poor hand at that work.” 

“ I’m not so sure of it,” replied Bessie. “ You didn’t 
prove so poor a hand, the other evening, at the festival, 
captain. Didn’t we have an absurd time of it ? ” 

“ But a Sunday-school, Miss Beaufort, isn’t like a fes- 
tival.” 

“ Oh yes, it is,” said she. “We have summer picnics 
and Christmas anniversaries, and aU sorts of goings-on.” 

“ But, Miss Beaufort, the Sunday-school — the regular 
teaching every Sunday in the school — is serious work.” 

“ Of course it is ; but, then, it’s — to tell the truth, it’s 
funny enough, too, sometimes.” 

“Do you suppose,” asked the captain, “that anybody 
would give me a class if I were to come in ? ” 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


69 


“ Give you a class ? Let me see : no, they’re all 
taken. But it would be easy enough for you to get one.” 

“ How ? What do you mean ? ” 

“ Why, there’s the new factory down by the river, 
and all the people who have just moved in there ; and 
there are crowds of children among them.” 

“ And you mean to say,” asked the captain, “ that I 
could go out and drum up recruits ? ” 

“ Certainly ; that’s the way I started my class.” 

“ Well, that is an idea,” said the man. 

“Come to think of it,” said Bessie, “it is possible 
that some of those children may be up to the church to- 
day. The superintendent spoke to the school last Sun- 
day, and asked the scholars to invite them up. If any of 
them come, and you are present, perhaps you’ll have an 
opportunity of getting a class without doing any drum- 
ming.” 

“ By Jove ! ” thought the captain, “ I believe I’ll go 
and try the thing. If there’s any fun in it, as Bessie 
says, why, there’s no sense in my losing it ; ” and he told 
that young lady of his decision. 

I suppose that, just here, my reader, who of course 
has always associated with very proper people, will be 
ready to say that Bessie was an exceedingly light-minded 
girl, and had no right to be teaching in a Sunday-school 
at all ; and that the captain was both light-minded and 


70 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


fickle-minded, too, to be drawn into doing the same thing 
with her, and by such inducements. But the reader must 
remember that the writer of a story is obliged sometimes 
to tell things precisely as they are, however much, for 
many reasons, he may desire to tell them as the reader 
would Hke to have them be. Bessie and the captain 
might have thought and talked very differently from 
what they did ; but, had they done so, they would not 
have been Bessie and the captain, and I should have had 
no story whatever to tell ; and think how badly off the 
world would have been then ! Besides, if they had been 
proper people, the reader, who knows all about what 
proper people ought to do, would have been as able as 
myself — even out of his own imagination — to surmise, 
and, therefore, not need to have me to tell him, what they 
thought and said. And, more than this, if they had been 
so very, very proper, I am not sure — in fact, I am rather 
doubtful — whether it would have been necessary for 
them to have had any church to attend at all ; and just 
now, inasmuch as I have introduced into my story both a 
church and a pastor, it seems absolutely necessary for me 
to find some people for the church to benefit. So, not- 
withstanding the reader’s protest, Bessie and the captain 
must remain, I think, as we have found them. 

After Bessie had ended her call on a little sick child 
in her class, whom she had come out thus early in the 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


71 


morning in order to visit — and I have heard the mother 
of the child tell, with tears in her eyes, how sweetly, ten- 
derly, and fervently Bessie used to pray with the little 
one — after Bessie had ended her call, she found the cap- 
tain waiting in the road near by, and ready to accompany 
her to the Sunday-school. And, when they had reached 
it, if you could have seen how all the young lady teach- 
ers blushed and smiled and nodded at him ! Any ordi- 
nary captain might have been contented to have marched 
ten miles every Sunday of his life to receive even nothing 
more than such a welcome ! 

Bessie had been right in surmising that possibly this 
morning some of the children who had just come to the 
village to live would be at the school. Before long, the 
captain found himself assigned to the duty of taking care 
of about a half-dozen of these. They were as wild a 
looking set of boys, between twelve and sixteen years of 
age, as it is often one’s lot to encounter. 

“Whew! look at the torchlight procession!” cried 
one of them. 

The captain looked around, and encountered the 
glowing face and ringlets of Miss Inthway. At this 
moment she was heading a line of small boys who were 
tiling behind her into the infant-class room. The first 
three of them, alas ! exhibited locks of the same brilliant 
hue as her own. If the captain smiled to see her, and she 


72 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


blushed in return to see his smile, and if others in the 
room, whom the boy’s words had not reached, thought that 
they detected something in the looks that these two inter- 
changed to talk about, was it the captain’s duty or Miss 
Inth way’s privilege to explain the reason of these looks ? 
And if they were not explained, was anybody to blame 
for misunderstanding them, or for telling of what they 
had misunderstood, and making a good deal of mischiev- 
ous gossip out of it? And if anybody were to blame, who 
was it? And if we had found him out, could we have 
done anything to him for it, or have corrected the evil 
that he had caused? Stop the echo after you have heard 
the sound that started it, then perhaps you can stop a slur 
after it has left the throat that uttered it. 

“ Hush ! hush ! ” the captain said to the boy who had 
spoken out, though not with a countenance so serious 
that the boy felt any fear of it. 

Unfortunately, the lesson for the day was that hardest 
of all the miracles to admit of rational explanation, — the 
story of Jonah ; and the captain floundered as badly as 
the whale itself in trying to dispose of him. The ques- 
tions or suggestions of the boys that he had not yet learned 
how to parry off, or to meet with a ready answer, gave 
him more trouble, he averred, than ever he had had in 
trying to control the most disorderly soldiers. The cli- 
max of his endeavors to draw forth their own thoughts 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


73 


with reference to the subject was reached when, in reply 
to one of his inquiries, a boy affirmed that, if he had been 
Jonah, he would just have pulled out a cigar and smoked 
it, and made the whale sick enough to throw him up long 
before the three days were over. The whole class seemed 
to be in an uproar. The captain began to think that the 
fun of which Bessie had spoken was all to be on the side 
of the boys. Finally, he concluded that he would enter- 
tain them with a story. Stories, he had heard, would 
always interest young people of this character. He 
thought, however, that he would not make the story very 
long. As he was teaching in a Sunday-school, it seemed 
appropriate that the tale itself should be comparatively 
short — only the moral of it long. But when he had 
reached the moral, the boys had reached the end of their 
listening : all, that is, but one. This one still sat with 
his eyes firmly riveted upon the teacher. So long as only 
one will listen to the moral, thought the teacher, it is my 
duty to go on with it and explain it fully. So, although 
the other boys were catching flies from one another’s 
noses, and pinching each other’s shins, and arousing laugh- 
ter from adjacent classes, and indignant looks from adja- 
cent teachers, and making the captain feel that he was in 
the midst of a sea of troubles, he kept on still, unfolding 
the moral to this single boy whose eyes continued riveted 
upon his own. He saw that the boy was anxious to in- 


74 


MODEKN FISHERS OF MEN. 


terrupt him with a question. And yet, if this were done, 
would it not break perhaps the spell by which the teacher 
held him ? Was it not best, so long as the boy continued 
to be interested, to keep on talking ; if the other boys 
were scuffling faster and whispering louder, to keep on 
talking faster and louder if necessary? The captain 
never had been so conscientious in the fulfillment of an 
obligation as in the fulfillment of what he supposed to be 
his obligation toward this single pupil. At last, however, 
his climax had been reached. The moral had been ar- 
gued, summed up, clinched ; and, with the pleasure that 
can come alone with the consciousness of duty done in 
the midst of adverse circumstances, he leaned his frame 
forward with a waiting ear to hear the question and the 
commentary on his teachings of which this boy, so pa- 
tiently and persistently gazing up at his face, was evi- 
dently so anxious to be delivered. 

‘‘Do you never shave ? ” asked the boy. 

As the little shaver put this question, the captain’s 
moral constitution experienced a shock, a growing sense of 
sickness, faintness, reeling, that might have led to graver 
consequences, had he not been revived by the ringing of 
a bell (and the smacking of the boys’ lips, whom it had re- 
minded of a dinner-bell), which was a signal, as he knew, 
that the teaching in the classes should be brought to an 
end, preparatory to the school’s closing exercises. He 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


75 


thought that he had never heard a bell ring whose tones 
sounded so sweetly. 

Though, in the dismay of the moment, the captain was 
inclined to pass a hasty judgment on himseK, as utterly 
incompetent for the work that he had undertaken, and to 
take a rash but irrevocable vow never to enter the Sun- 
day-school again, he had reason, before the end of the 
week, to doubt whether his first inferences were alto- 
gether trustworthy. 

On Wednesday morning, he happened to step in at 
the barber’s. Who should confront him on the threshold 
of the shop but the very boy whose reckless disregard of 
the proprieties of time and place — and face, for that mat- 
ter — ^had been the cause of so much disappointment and 
chagrin to him on the preceding Sunday ? “ Aha ! after 

all,” he thought to himself, as he caught sight of the 
youngster, ^^this boy’s question was only professional. 
He was simply beginning early what a good many of his 
elders carry on through life — appropriating the oppor- 
tunities of the sanctuary for the furtherance of trade. By- 
the-way, too, what a goose I was not to ask these boys about 
their homes and themselves, and get them to talking and 
thinking about something in which they were really in- 
terested ! ” 

“ Well, my boy,” he said to his adversary of the last 

Sabbath, “ is this the place where you live ? ” 

4 


76 


MODEKN FISHERS OF MEN. 


“ Why, Captain Loring,’’ said the hoy, a bright, ac- 
tive, light-complexioned lad, fourteen years old, perhaps, 
“ have you come to see us ? Father, father, here’s Cap- 
tain Loring.” 

The barber, thus addressed, turned about and came 
forward, with an air evidently more cordial than that with 
which he was accustomed to greet an ordinary applicant 
for his professional services. 

“Yery happy to see you. Captain Loring,” he said. 
“Yery happy to see you — very much honor — must call 
the old woman. Hannah! Hannah! Johnny, go call 
your mother.” 

As the boy ran out, the father continued : “ That boy’s 
been a-talking about you all the week, sir. You see, we 
have to use him in the shop, here, an’ he don’t get much 
schoolin’ ; and he ought to get some o’ Sundays, and not 
be runnin’ with the other boys so. They’re a hard lot 
here, sir, a hard lot. But then he’ll never take to Sunday- 
school. We’ve tried all of ’em that’s here, sir, an’ he 
don’t like the teachers. They’re too solemn, I s’pose. 
He only went up there last Sunday, now, ‘ ’cause,’ he said, 
‘ there was new boys as was goin’ up, an’ he was a-goin’ 
with ’em.’ But you’ve took his heart, sir. I never see 
anything like it.” 

“Yes, sir,” said the mother, after she had been intro- 
duced, “ an’ he’s been a-readin’ his Bible — ^haven’t you, 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


77 


Johnny ? — He’s kind o’ shy-like, yon know. — ^Why, that 
there Bible hasn’t been took down in this house, I don’t 
know for how long, until he got a-hold on it to read that 
story about the whale, you know. An’ he’s been a-learnin’ 
the lesson for next week, too — ^haven’t you, J ohnny ? — 
He’s an awful shy hoy, that. — I’m sure if you can keep 
him out o’ mischief, you’re a-doin’ more ’an we can, though 
he’s not a had hoy, either — are you, Johnny ? — But then, 
you see, boys as runs with other boys, they will get 
sassy.” 

“Do you go up there to the church, yourselves?” 
asked the captain, as though the sudden experience of 
having “ honor thrust upon him ” in the form of being 
considered a moral and spiritual guide in the community 
had aroused in him a sense of the fact that he ought to 
do something in order to maintain his character. 

“ I tell my old man he ought to go,” said the woman, 
“ but, you know, he kind o’ thinks he don’t believe in 
such things.” 

“ But why don’t you go yourself ? ” asked the captain, 
and he almost bit his lips as he did so ; he was so thor- 
oughly startled to find himself, by the force of circum- 
stances, thrust into a position where he was acting in that 
very role of a propagandist and a proselytist, perhaps, in 
which, an hour before, he had been telling the pastor that 
it would be impossible for him to act. He was learning 


78 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


by experience that, in this world, a very little step, in 
one direction or another, makes a very great difference 
with one’s future. There is only one step between the 
gangway of a ship and the water underneath it ; and the 
man who plays upon the edge of the gangway when the 
ship is under motion may tumble overboard. Captain 
Loring had gone into the Sunday-school (so my proper 
reader has decided) in order to please Bessie Beaufort, 
and to experience some of the ‘‘ fun ” of the thing. But 
now he was beginning to reap the consequences of his 
action ; and, as a man of honor, it did not seem to him 
that he could get away from them. Of course, as I have 
intimated in another place, I might have made Bessie, 
before he crossed the threshold of that school, preach 
him a little sermon ; and I might have pictured the cap- 
tain under deep conviction of sinfulness and a desire to 
reform ; and, after all of this self-conscious action on the 
part of Bessie and himself, we might have been prepared 
for the circumstances I am now relating. But there are 
things in this world that, occasionally, do not begin in 
this self-conscious way. And in the present story — pos- 
sibly in all stories — one may be truer to the facts that he 
is trying to relate if he acknowledge this. 

“ Why don’t you go to church yourself? ” asked the cap- 
tain, addressing this mother of his Sunday-school scholar. 

“ Why, you see, I can’t go up there with them folks. 


MODERN FISHERS OP MEN. 


79 


I haven’t got no dresses — don’t you see ? — that would be 
decent-like ; and then them pews — ^they’re all of ’em 
somebody or other’s. My man, now, he could sit most 
anywhere, an’ they wouldn’t notice him.” 

“ Haven’t any dresses ? ” said the captain, laughing. 
“ W ell, well, now, do you suppose those people want you 
to dress as well as they do ? Don’t you know that they’d 
a great deal rather have poor dressing all around them, 
so as to show themselves off better, by the contrast ? ” 

“ I never ’a’ thought o’ that,” said the woman. 

“Ho?” said the captain; and to tell the truth, his 
sense of his own originality would have been dashed a 
little if he had supposed that she had thought of it. 
“ Why, of course it is so, isn’t it ? — and as for the pew, 
why ” — and the captain had stumbled into the statement 
before he had fairly thought of what he was saying — 
“ I’ll be whipped now, if I don’t hire enough pews, if 
necessary, for all the folks of all the boys in my class. 
You’ll have to come then, won’t you? ” 

There is no need of telling the result of such speeches 
as this. The next Sunday the barber and his wife and 
son were all in church. And when the other boys of the 
class, and those in the village who “ didn’t go to any Sun- 
day-school,” had heard of the captain’s visit to the bar- 
ber’s, and how he wasn’t “ stuck up ” at all ; and more 
than this, how he had risen in the army, and was the very 


80 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


one who had made such a deal of fun for all the people at 
the church-festival, a week or two before, they flocked to 
the Sunday-school in such numbers that the captain found 
his hands full ; but they all paid him such respect and 
deference that he never had any more trouble in control- 
ling them. 


CHAPTEK YIL 


A LITTLE FISHING THAT WAS NOT VERY QUIET. 

There ought to be ‘‘an effort made” in Chartville 
church and community in behalf of temperance, — at 
least this was the opinion of Mrs. Beaufort, who had 
communicated her conclusion to the pastor, and, in the 
same breath, urged upon him the propriety of inviting 
Mr. Gaspack from the city in order to assist him in a 
series of “ special temperance services.” The pastor was 
willing enough to admit that there ought to be an effort 
made in behaK of this reform, and a good many efforts 
made, but he was somewhat loath to accept the whole 
scope of Mrs. Beaufort’s suggestion. At the same time 
he had learned that people in this world, especially if 
they occupy official positions, must often do things mere- 
ly because other people desire to have them do them ; 
and he had a sufficiently humble estimate of the results 
of his own labors in the cause to which his attention had 
now been directed, to be open to conviction, when assured 


82 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


that the assistance of some one else would enable him to 
perform these labors more acceptably. He really knew 
nothing of Mr. Graspack of such a nature as to lead to the 
inference that this gentleman’s proffered services would 
not prove beneficial to the neighborhood. Whatever 
impressions of a contrary kind might have been received 
seemed to be mainly the results of mere prejudice. No 
man should be governed by his prejudices. He deter- 
mined that he himself should not be. HaK a dozen 
addresses by Mr. Gaspack could not do so very much 
harm, he thought, no matter what was said in them. 
Besides, for himself, it would be exceedingly unwise to 
offend Mrs. Beaufort, as he might do by refusing to accept 
her advice, — unwise so far as concerned the interests 
of the church ; unwise, as the reader has already been 
made aware, so far as concerned his own interests. 

So about a week later the door of the lecture-room of 
Chartville church was swinging open every evening just 
at sunset, while the Goosneks and the Gobblupps, Deacon 
Fleischbottom and all the other good people of the neigh- 
borhood, were winding slowly thither from every quarter 
in order to patronize (this certainly is the appropriate 
word as applied to some of them) the “ special temperance 
services.” 

The first of these services had been held on a Saturday 
evening, partly because Saturday was a haK-holiday with 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


83 


many of the people, old and young, who, therefore, would 
be likely to be present in large numbers, and thus start 
off the series of meetings successfully; partly because 
whatever was done on this evening could be well followed 
up by “ efforts ” on the Sabbath. At this meeting Mr. 
Gaspack had made his first appearance. But with him — 
in his own opinion and in that of his admirers — to come 
was to conquer. His decidedly tempestuous style of ora- 
tory, bursting like a thunder-shower from a clear sky, 
immediately after a gentle though earnest appeal by the 
pastor, had soon obliterated the substance of this appeal 
from the thoughts of the audience as effectually as his 
portly figure, standing in front of the pastor’s form, had 
obliterated it from the audience’s vision. ‘‘ You see, he 
is a man of force — real native strength,” Mrs. Beaufort 
had said when the meeting was over. She was “ really 
almost sorry for the pastor, not that he” (the pastor) 
“ hadn’t spoken well, you know. He had spoken, in fact, 
remarkably well — for him ; but such a contrast ! And 
then to think that Mr. Gaspack wasn’t a college-educated 
man at all — had had no such advantages ! Ah ! it was 
the heart, the heart ; to have the heart enlisted in a cause 
like this — that was the great thing ! ” And as what Mrs. 
Beaufort said was sure to be repeated all over the village 
— if for no other reason, to let all the village know who 
the privileged being was to whom Mrs. Beaufort, with 


84 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


reference to any subject, bad deigned to unbosom herself 
— and as, until at least within a few weeks, she had been 
considered to be the very best friend that Mr. Thompson 
had, of course her remarks alone were enough to crowd 
the church on the occasion of the next appearance of her 
favorite — i. e., on the Sunday evening following — ^though 
whether at the expense of the popularity and success of 
the pastor, who was to continue with them long after Mr. 
Gaspack had taken his departure, the reader may judge 
for himself. 

On this Sunday evening Mr. Gaspack had evidently 
come to the conclusion, in view of the great numbers 
who had thronged to hear him, that he was the master of 
the situation. What more natural for a truthful and in- 
genuous spirit like his own than to take upon itself the 
air and authority of a master of the situation ? More- 
over, like a great many other people who have read little 
and thought much — about themselves — and possess, in 
addition, that susceptibility of temperament which causes 
one to be easily kindled to enthusiastic admiration for 
the object of his thoughts, he had arrived, after many 
years of persistent self-culture all tending in the same 
direction, at the conclusion (than which what could be 
more satisfactory ?) that anything that he himself did not 
know, wish, or feel, was not worth knowing, wishing, or 
feeling. Could any conclusion, if communicated to others, 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


85 


prove more beneficial to them than this? Was there 
any better method of instruction or appeal through which 
another’s soul could become more completely disin- 
thralled from all the petty annoyances that come to one 
so blind to the conditions of perfect peace as still to 
study, doubt, and struggle ? What more noble aim, then, 
could thrill his trembling locks, explode his tones, or 
animate his arms, than to become the prophet of what he 
acted as if he thoroughly believed to be the kingdom 
within himself ? — the Lord of which, when ruling within 
so great a man as he was, needed apparently, in his opin- 
ion, to exercise no contemporaneous lordship within the 
minds or consciences of any who surrounded him. 

It was as the prophet of this belief that he had spoken 
on this second evening. It happened to be the Sabbath- 
day. Of course, then, he was expected to treat the sub- 
ject that he had to handle from a religious view-point. 
But could there be more than one religious view-point ? 
And could that be — ought that to be — any other than his 
own ? And as he knew that, in a village in which 
churches were necessarily few, the present congregation 
must be composed of those of almost every denomination 
of Christians, what more commendable or scriptural 
course could he take, where people were of many minds, 
than to try to make them of one mind ? And nothing 
made him shudder more, he was wont to say, than a sug- 


86 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


gestion, sucli as (to do him justice) made his head shake 
violently as he turned it in the direction of Mrs. Beaufort 
during the pastor’s sermon on this very morning — a sug- 
gestion that the pastor had made when urging all to unite 
together in order to make the special services a success — 
to the effect that Christians might become of one mind 
by agreeing to be of different minds. This certainly was 
not an orthodox view of the subject. And Mr. Gaspack 
had been a member of a Christian church for years, and 
knew what he was talking about. He was as anxious, he 
had told Mrs. Beaufort, as the pastor himself was to have 
the “ special services ” succeed, but not at the expense of 
having the truth compromised ! When, therefore, on the 
evening of this day, he had found that a crowd had as- 
sembled to hear him, he had taken occasion to emphasize 
(and he prided himself that he knew how to emphasize) 
every peculiar doctrine of the peculiar denomination, and 
of the peculiar school of the denomination, to which he 
himself — and, unfortunately for Chart ville congregation, 
the pastor, too — belonged. When he had struck his fist 
for the last time against the Bible, there was certainly no 
one in the room whom he had not given reason to believe 
that, in his opinion (and his opinion was an exceedingly 
important one to know about), the heaven above, to which 
he would draw or drive them, was a place designed for 
very peculiar people. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


87 


When he had taken his seat, the pastor rose, evidently 
impressed with the idea that a few there present might 
not be induced to struggle very hard to enter a narrow 
way that merely led to a region where they could share 
in the society or become submissive to the sway of one 
constituted and educated precisely like the man who had 
addressed them. In a few brief sentences, in which he 
did his best to give no offense to any one, he pointed out 
the difference between what his church considered to be 
essential and non-essential doctrines ; then he endeavored 
to draw the thoughts of the audience back to the particu- 
lar subject that they had come together to-night to con- 
sider ; and ended, like a true fisher of men as he was, by 
presenting a few broad inducements to a reformed life, 
cast like a net upon the waters with a desire to draw in 
all the fishes — not only great ones, like Mr. Gaspack and 
those resembling him, but also small ones, whom the 
world undoubtedly would be more likely to overlook. 
But Mr. Gaspack had evidently been offended. Had not 
his own infallibility been impugned ? On the third 
evening of the special services, as he came somewhat 
earlier than usual to the place of meeting, I am afraid — 
though I should scarcely have ventured to suggest the 
idea to Mrs. Beaufort — that he was not in any very sanc- 
tified humor. Upon entering the room, he found there 
Mrs. Gobblupp and Mrs. Goosnek and a few more, who, 


88 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


like many other very good members of our church con- 
gregations when they get together, seemed to have re- 
solved themselves, by common consent, into a Committee 
of the Whole, intent upon investigating and determining 
the character of all their fellow-members who were not 
present. Forsooth, was it not a Christian’s first duty to 
know about any improprieties of life in his own communion? 

They were talking now, as perhaps became those who 
had been brought together for the purpose that had 
caused them to assemble, of the latest new ‘‘sensations” 
in the village ; and, as Mr. Gaspack’s entrance necessarily 
turned the tide of talk from him, it ebbed to dash at 
Captain Loring. 

“ He’s got the hearts of all the girls, at any rate,” said 
Mrs. Gobblupp, who, it must be owned, had the weak- 
ness, even behind the man’s back, to reveal a soft spot in 
her heart for him. Had he not escorted her daughter 
Sally round and round the room, in the sight of all the 
people, on the evening of the festival ? 

“ Yes, yes, I should think he had,” said Mrs. Goosnek, 
whose daughter the captain had not escorted. “ Did you 
ever see anything so silly? How, there’s Bessie Beau- 
fort, you know — ” 

“You can’t say anything against her anyway,” said 
Mrs. Gobblupp, who, without knowing anything of the 
extent of the intimacy existing between Mr. Gaspack and 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


89 


the Beaufort family, knew enough of his relations to 
them to desire to have him prepared to carry them a 
favorable report of what she had said of them in their 
absence. 

“You don’t get up very early Sunday momin’, I 
guess,” answered Mrs. Goosnek. “Such goin’s on I 
never see before anyhow — walking to meet each other on 
the road long before any decent folks, as has a proper 
regard for Sunday mornin’, has got their breakfast, then 
walkin’ up an’ down together, an’ puttin’ their heads to- 
gether an’ talkin’, then she a-goin’ into a house an’ stayin’ 
as much as twenty minutes, an’ he a-sittin’ outside on a 
fence, an’ waitin’ for her, an’ then both together a-walkin’ 
on again, and a-waitin’ for each other after Sunday-school 
an’ church. I’d like to know if you ever see one of my 
girls doin’ that. If Bessie Beaufort is so dead in love 
with him, as everybody knows she is, she isn’t a modest 
girl to show it as she does, that’s all.” 

“ And when did you see all that ? ” asked Mrs. Gob- 
blupp. 

“ When did I see % ” answered Mrs. Goosnek. “ When, 
to be sure, but when everybody else see it — or, best o’ 
ways, somethin’ of it — two weeks ago last Sunday ? My 
daughter Susie, she was in the front-room a-dressin’, an’ 
I just heard her a-callin’ out like mad; and then she 
come in swingin’ her stocking like the flag-man at the 


90 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


station ; and says she, ‘ Come here, come here. Here’s 
Bessie Beaufort an’ the captain a-sparking here together.’ 
An’ I just got out o’ bed, an’ my old man, an’ all of us, 
an’ we just sat an’ watched ’em; an’, as I said afore, 
such goin’s on I never see in all my life.” 

“ That isn’t the worst of it either,” said little old Miss 
Sniffins. “ There’s Miss Inthway, too, and she’s old 
enough, as goodness knows, to know better ; and right 
before the whole Sunday-school the other day — why, there 
was as many as fifty people there that saw it — she just 
turned red as — why, as red as your ribbon there, Mrs. 
Gobblupp, just to see the captain turn around and look 
at her. And then, they say, he just blushed as red as she 
did, and then they both of them just giggled out at each 
other like a couple of school-girls. Now, I always hold 
there isn’t smoke like that without some fire. And they 
do say that, with all the airs she puts on, and all her talk 
about the catechism and the Bible, she’s a mighty frivo- 
lous girl.” 

“ An’ the captain’s just from the war, too,” went on 
Mrs. Goosnek, ‘‘an’ everybody knows the morals isn’t 
good there?'^ 

“ I don’t like to criticise,” said Deacon Fleischbottom. 
“My conscience is agin it. And yet I don’t see how 
such folks git into Sunday-school or the church at all. 
"Who knows now anything about this Captain Loring? 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


91 


We onlj know lie ain’t a Christian, that’s all. He went 
straight out o’ church, just like a goat, last Sunday, at 
the communion ; and, if he ain’t a Christian, I don’t see 
for one why Christian people, whether they be men or 
girls, should go with him.” 

“But the pastor brought him here,” said Mrs. Gob- 
blupp. But just at this moment the pastor himself 
entered the room ; and so, of course, this part of the dis- 
cussion ended. 

During this conversation, Mr. Gaspack had been 
standing at the desk, absorbed apparently in making 
selections from the hymn-book and the Bible that he had 
been persistently thumbing. But not a word that had 
been uttered had escaped him. As he listened to the 
talk — it would not do, of course, to accuse Mr. Gaspack 
of experiencing any such feelings as those of jealousy and 
envy — but as he heard the names of the family with which 
he was on such intimate terms bandied about so lightly, 
and considered that the cause of all was the conduct, no 
doubt abundantly light in itself, of this Captain Boring, 
who, according to his own acknowledgment, was not a 
Christian, is it strange that he should have felt some- 
thing chivalric striving within him, and prompting him 
to defend the weaker parties — something, too, embracing 
a wider scope than the interests of a single family, some- 
thing calling upon aU that was noble in his nature to de- 


92 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


fend every one of the tender lambs of the Sabbath-school 
from the ravages of this wolf that might destroy them? 
Is it strange that, if it were so ordered in the course of the 
evening that an opportunity was offered him of giving 
expression to this desire within, he should manfully have 
performed his whole duty in view of the circumstances 
without regard to consequences ? There are, perhaps, no 
greater fools than those who fancy that there is only one 
right side to every question, or that the advocate of only 
one of two or three conflicting measures is prompted to 
his views or deeds by noble motives. Let us, at least, 
not be among their number. Whatever we may think of 
Mr. Gaspack’s motives, let us do him the justice of be- 
lieving that some of them — though possibly not visible 
to ourselves — ^were worthy of the character that Mrs. 
Beaufort had admired so much. 


CHAPTEE YIII. 


SOME FISH THAT RAN AWAY FROM A NOISY FISHEr’s NET. 

Mrs. Beaufort had suggested that in these temper- 
ance services, which were designed especially to benefit 
the younger portion — at least the younger men — of the 
congregation, the scholars of the Sunday-school, so far as 
possible, should sit together in classes with their teachers. 
Accordingly, Will Loring, like the accommodating fellow 
that he was, had taken a seat this evening with his own 
class, around which, in fulfilhnent of the principle that 
“ birds of a feather fiock together,” there had collected a 
crowd of other rough boys in no way connected with this 
church, nor, so far as one could judge from what they 
did, with any church. Everything was going on smooth- 
ly, and the pastor was congratulating himself that the 
indiscretion manifested by Mr. Gaspack on the preceding 
evening was not to be repeated, when, at the end of a 
really eloquent appeal of this gentleman’s, during which, 
however, his imagination had undoubtedly got the better 


94 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


of his judgment, lie called upon all those present who 
could join with him in a very well delivered but by no 
means sensible or truthful sentiment which he had just 
uttered to rise and remain standing. 

While many of the congregation, as frequently hap- 
pens in cases of the kind, carried away by their feelings 
to such an extent as not to be able to use their judgments, 
rose in response to this appeal, the part of the room in 
which were sitting Captain Loring and the crowd that 
had gathered about him revealed scarcely a single stand- 
ing figure. Is it a wonder that the current of Mr. Gas- 
pack’s eloquence should have been turned, with all the 
vehemence that characterized it, in that direction ? To 
what better purpose could it be put than to overwhelm, 
in order to cleanse completely, that place which he had 
discovered in the corner, and which he chose to speak 
of with many opprobrious epithets ? But no one likes to 
be called names. These boys did not like it, and soon, 
by the scraping of their feet, they began to manifest their 
dislike of it. At this, Mr. Gaspack began to become 
more vehement, and just as he did so he happened to 
observe Captain Loring there among them, and still re- 
taining his sitting posture. Here clearly was his oppor- 
tunity. Was not this teacher of the Sabbath-school show- 
ing unmistakably by his example his lack of sympathy 
with “ the cause ? ” And who could tell how much his 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


95 


influence had had to do with the behavior of the younger 
people who surrounded him? Mr. Gaspack shook his 
fist and cleared his throat for a fresh exertion. At the 
same time he had sufficient presence of mind and knowl- 
edge of human nature to avoid the appearance of making 
what he had to say entirely personal. He turned his face 
from the captain in the corner of the room to direct it 
toward the audience in its centre. He uttered only gen- 
eral principles. He was valiant only for the right. He 
did not even use the personal pronoun, except in the plu- 
ral. But he had scarcely ended a single sentence of a 
passage in which he had undertaken to enlighten his 
audience with reference to the fate that would overtake 
the churches that “ committed the spiritual guardianship 
of youth, of tender and susceptible youth, to those who 
had no sympathy with right life ” (right life being, just 
now, in Mr. Gaspack’s opinion, the act of standing up 
as godfather to any extravagant conception to which his 
own fertile imagination might give birth) ; “ who were 
therefore but blind leaders of the blind ; who were cap- 
tains of damnation to those who needed the Captain of 
Salvation ” — before such a hiss was started by Johnny, the 
barber’s son, and taken up by all the boys in the corner, 
as silenced, for a moment, even Mr. Gaspack. Unfortu- 
nately, too, just when the hiss had started. Captain Bor- 
ing, who had surmised the drift of the speaker’s thoughts, 


96 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


and desired to prevent a repetition of any act of his that 
might provoke him, had risen (he was only two seats from 
the door) in order to leave the room. Innocent and even 
commendable as was his motive, it made his action appear 
to be — possibly it was — the exciting cause of the hisses. 
On seeing him leave, therefore, Mr. Gaspack turned pale, 
then red, then roared out something to “ the boys ” about 
the appropriateness of their following the example of 
their leader ; whereat, as though they had understood him 
to tell them to leave the room, though he had done noth- 
ing of the sort, they all rose up, and, keeping step with a 
stamping loud enough for a whole regiment, they tramped 
out slowly into the open air, where, for some time, their 
voices could be heard cheering and jeering, until, as was 
found out afterward. Captain Loring stopped them. 

W as ever anything like this heard of before in Chart- 
ville or any other church ? Certainly never. And as it 
all had happened while Mr. Gaspack was speaking upon 
temperance, and while he, from the very fact that he was 
speaking upon temperance, had the sympathy, of course, 
of all the good people present, these good people, like 
very many others of their class, who suppose that nothing 
wrong whatever can be done by one who at the same 
time is doing right, and nothing right whatever by one 
who at the same time is doing wrong, were satisfied at 
once that the whole blame of this disgraceful and bias- 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


97 


phemous proceeding was due to the boys and to Captain 
Loring, who, as it appeared, bad led them on. 

Tbis opinion, whatever be may have thought of the 
knowledge of human nature and the degree of reflection 
that it displayed, the pastor saw clearly depicted in the 
faces of those before him. So did Mr. Gaspack, and he 
“ improved the occasion ” to clinch, with some sharp and 
ringing blows, the nail which he now seemed to be con- 
vinced that he had struck upon the head. Ay, had he 
not found out at last the head and front of the offending 
in this Chartville church ? Had he not discovered, had 
not all who had witnessed this scene this evening discov- 
ered, what was the result, and the legitimate result, of that 
spirit of indifference and levity which, as he felt it his 
duty to insinuate (though, as he said afterward, he would 
not for the world have cast any reflections upon the pas- 
tor), controlled in the councils of Chartville church ? 
Could they not all perceive just why his eloquent appeals 
of the two preceding evenings had had so little effect in 
this community ? 

And, all this while, there sat the poor pastor in the 
pulpit. He heard his most intimate friend, whom every- 
body knew to be his most intimate friend — as distinctly 
as though the name had been mentioned — misrepresented 
and maligned. He knew that, as a consequence, this 
friend would be detested by most of the community 5 


98 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


and yet lie knew that it would be useless for him, here 
and now, to attempt a defence. He heard this current 
of vituperative rhetoric poured forth in a way that he 
felt convinced would prove fatal not only to his own in- 
fluence as a man and pastor, but also to the influence of 
his church, in promoting the good which he had hoped 
that the church would do not only to the captain but to 
hundreds of others in the neighborhood. And yet he 
knew that he could not, here and now, oppose this. Was 
it anything but natural that, during the rest of the even- 
ing, he should feel like what he was confident that some 
of the audience would consider him to be, a traitor to his 
friend and a coward to his own conscience; that for a 
moment he should feel ready to acknowledge that the 
victory of defamation had been complete ? Those who 
saw him rise and heard him oflPer the closing prayer that 
evening said that they had never before seen him appear 
so humble. 

Possibly, if the pastor had been perfectly frank with 
himself (but no man is so), he would have been ready to 
acknowledge a reason for his humility in addition even 
to those already mentioned. Immediately after the con- 
fusion that had followed when “ the boys ” had left the 
room, he had noticed that Martha Beaufort, who played 
the cabinet organ, and sat at one side of it close by the 
door, had also disappeared. Why had she done so ? Had 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


99 


she gone into the vestibule to meet Captain Loring, and 
to speak to him about this matter? Had she merely 
withdrawn from the room on account of her sympathy 
with the captain, and to show her disapprobation of the 
course of Mr. Gaspack in attacking him ? Either answer 
to this question was of a nature to cause discomfort to 
him who had asked it. It was therefore both a surprise 
and a joy to him, at the conclusion of the meeting, when, 
after having spoken to a few who had remained for con- 
versation, he turned into his study and encountered, on 
the threshold of it, Miss Martha Beaufort. 

“Oh, Mr. Thompson,” she said, with an unusually 
warm glance of those confiding eyes, “ can’t we do some- 
thing to get rid of that horrid man ? ” 

“ Why, Miss Martha,” said the pastor, wholly startled 
by her sudden appearance there, and by her expression, 
“ I thought — ” 

“Yes, I know what you thought,” she answered. 
“ Poor dear mamma means it all right, but she doesn’t 
know, and she will not know, this man. And I ’m sure you 
don’t like him. You can’t like him, can you? And he’s 
doing so much harm here — to all those dear young men 
now, and — ” 

“ To dear Captain Loring,” said the pastor ; though 
before the words were out of his mouth his face was 
burning with shame at the consciousness of having re- 


100 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


vealed, as he thought, the whole story of the existence 
within him of that jealousy which before this he would 
have been unwilling to acknowledge even to himseK. 
And when he blushed so — why, Martha could not help 
it — she blushed too. But just then Bessie Beaufort’s 
voice, together with Mr. Gaspack’s, was heard calling 
upon the sister to tell her that their carriage was ready to 
take them home. 

‘‘ I must go now,” said Martha, “ but I know you’ll 
do something about it.” And the eyes that shone out of 
the flushing face to linger for a moment upon his own, 
were they not full of confldence ? not only so, but of the 
very deepest sympathy? 

“ It cannot be,” thought the pastor, “ that I have lost 
her yet. There stiU is hope.” 


CHAPTEK IX. 


A FISHER WHO, FOR SOME REASON, WAS VACILLATING. 

There stiU is hope,” thought the pastor, as he rose 
and looked at the bright sunshine streaming into his 
room on the morning following. And, somehow or oth- 
er, the more he thought of it, the more convinced he 
became that the fulfillment of this hope, or of any hope 
that had to do with his own happiness or his church’s 
welfare, depended on his being able to gratify Miss Mar- 
tha Beaufort’s wish, expressed in the desire of the pre- 
vious evening, that in some way he would get rid of 
“ that horrid man.” But how to do this — that was the 
question. He puzzled himseK over it all the time that 
he was eating his breakfast. He puzzled over it after 
breakfast when he sat down and tried to write a sermon. 
He puzzled over it when he rose and began to walk rest- 
lessly up and down the room. He puzzled over it when 
he stood looking out of the window in the direction of 
the Beaufort mansion, when he looked down to pull out 


102 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


his watch and note the hour. He puzzled over it when 
he turned for a score of times to walk up and down his 
room again, and for a score of times to repeat the same 
movements at the window. He puzzled over it — was it 
anything else, think you, that he was puzzling over ? — 
when he suddenly flung ofl his working-attire, and began 
to make elaborate preparations, and then to carry them 
out, for a complete change in his wardrobe. Whither so 
early ? and why so scrupulously clad, O thou descendant 
of the Hickories ? Let time unfold. 

The pastor’s object — ^he himself felt convinced of it 
— was a conscientious one. Could anything be more so ? 
He was about to save Captain Loring, to save “ the boys ” 
of the village, to save his whole church, to save himself ; 
and to do it all — and this brought a thrill to his heart 
that a more skeptical nature might have deemed sus- 
picious — to do it all for the sake of Miss Martha Beau- 
fort. 

It almost made him run instead of walk along the 
road, as he thought how comprehensive and ennobling 
was the end that he had set out to accomplish, and what 
satisfaction it should give him wLen it was attained. 

He had been completely absorbed in this thought 
when, suddenly, he found himself face to face with the 
gateway that opened into the path leading up to the Beau- 
fort mansion. Then it occurred to him — it was a pleasant 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


103 


morning and still early — that he would continue his walk 
a little farther. 

Ah, Mr. Thompson, Kev. H. Dickory Thompson, 
why did you hesitate ? Why, in the first flush of your 
zeal, did you not go boldly into the house, call for Mrs. 
Beaufort, appeal to her acknowledged interest in the 
church, and, in a straightforward business-like way, tell 
her that it was inexpedient to have Mr. Gaspack continue 
his services, and ask her to use her infiuence, as delicately 
as she chose, to have him bring them to a close ? Why 
did you throw away those brave resolutions and profound 
arguments upon which you had so prided yourself, and 
which for the last two hours you had been so assiduously 
rehearsing? Did you not know — ^would not your own 
judgment, if you had permitted yourself to be guided by 
it, have assured you — that a woman, in fact one of any 
sex, invariably has more respect, and therefore regard, for 
the soul that stands up alone, fearless of opposition, to 
champion what he claims to be the right, than for a whole 
regiment of sycophants, deferentially bowing and scrap- 
ing, even though they may agree with the object of their 
adulation in every syllable that they utter ? Why, then, 
did you abandon the courageous, simple, and straight- 
forward method that you had determined on ? W as it 
because your conscience told you that, after all, your 
motives were not so simple and straightforward, not so 


104 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


single and disinterested, as they might be? Were you 
apprehensive that the penetrating sense of Mrs. Beaufort 
might detect the fact ? And, if so, why should you have 
been apprehensive about it ? 

It is strange — is it not, reader ? — ^that this man, whose 
state of heart, if acknowledged, would have conveyed the 
greatest possible compliment to Miss Martha Beaufort, to 
Mrs. Beaufort, and to all the Beaufort family, was yet so 
diffident about the sKghtest act that should reveal even 
a hint of the truth. Forsooth, he would blush from 
head to foot just to fancy how he should feel if Mrs. 
Beaufort should surmise that he and Martha had come to 
sympathize even so far as to agree in their opinions con- 
cerning Mr. Gaspack. And yet we all have pretty much 
the same experience. Why, I myself, before my mind 
had grown sufficiently mature to write this story — if the 
reader by a stretch of his imagination can conceive of 
such a period — remember now how, once upon a time, I 
too discovered, by the presence of unwonted flutterings 
in my bosom, how I also had a similar yearning for the 
companionship of a similar combination of human flesh 
and — what I then considered — human coloring. And in 
that romantic period it often happened that, the even- 
ing after I had called upon her, and the next and next 
and next, I would sit alone, unable utterly to do a thing 
but face my mirror, and to meditate upon the problem 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


105 


how to arrange to call on her again. At last, upon the 
fifth night possibly, I would dress myself, pull on a 
pair of gloves a size too small for me, and, saying “ I 
have waited long enough ; to-night I will call,” saunter 
out and down the street, and reach her door-step. But, 
alas ! once there, my heart would fail me. I would say : 

I cannot — ^not to-night ; it’s soon, too soon. Were I to 
go in now she really might suppose that I thought some- 
thing of her!” So I would stand a while debating 
with myself, or cross the street and try to look from a 
distance into her parlor-window, wondering who that fel- 
low was that was with her now, and there I would linger, 
walking up and down for hours, until aroused at last by 
a strong conviction that every policeman on the street had 
marked me out as some suspicious character. And this 
absurd performance I would repeat for nights and nights, 
until, perhaps upon the tenth night, I would summon up 
sufficient pluck to ring her door-bell with a throbbing 
heart, pass into her parlor with a face as fiushed as 
Daniel’s prophets entering into the fiery furnace, and 
then spend all the evening talking to her sister I for fear 
still that the girl I fancied really might suppose that I 
thought something of her. Ah me ! but what a fool I 
was ! And how that girl confirmed my judgment of her 
merits when at last she manued one of your blood-full, 
beef-like, practical business men, and so was saved from 


106 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


life-long agitation and aspiration with one of jonr ner- 
vous, literary — ! I can’t help thinking now how God 
preserved her children — for she bore one every year from 
that time onward till she died — from certain experiences 
that would have been very different from what they were 
had she chosen to do otherwise. 

However, there is no design just here to cast insinua- 
tions of a detrimental character on the temperament or 
conduct of the Rev. Mr. Thompson. It is true that, on 
the morning we have been describing, he did extend his 
walk. It is true that he contracted it again, and stood 
once more in front of the gate that he had vowed to 
enter. It is true that again and again he repeated the 
same extension and contraction of his walk, and with the 
same result. It is true that Mrs. Beaufort, sitting in the 
nursery in the upper story of the Beaufort mansion, and 
Bessie and Martha Beaufort and Miss Inthway all saw 
his actions, and wondered what was the matter. It is 
true that, after a time, they ascribed them to a vacillating 
tendency of mind. It is true that they, as well as all of 
my sensible readers, considered such a tendency of mind 
a mark of weakness — so different, you know, from any- 
thing evinced by Mr. Gaspack. Ah ! yes, ye Beauforts, 
a mark of weakness truly ; and he might have done so 
many things that, in your opinion, would have seemed a 
mark of strength ! He might have boldly attacked Mr. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


107 


Gaspack the evening before this at the church ; but, then, 
his doing so might have divided Chartville church for- 
ever. He might have boldly attacked him in your pres- 
ence here this morning ; but, then, this weakness has de- 
grees. A man whose spirit yields to the strength of love 
may have some character left him, after all. 

But to go on with our story : The end of Mr. Thomp- 
son’s vacillation evinced, if anything, more weakness than 
did its beginning. As in the case of all men when, for 
any reason, reflection gets the better of courage, the idea 
had flitted through his head that his objects might be 
attained best indirectly — in other words, there had dan- 
gled down upon his mental vision, like the ragged end of 
a ship’s cable, one of the tow-like ringlets of Miss Inth- 
way, and, like a drowning man when snatching at a straw 
to save himself, he had snatched at this. Miss Inthway 
had declared that she wished to consult him on some ques- 
tion of theology. He had never called upon her. She 
was one of his parishioners. Why should he not call 
upon her now ? And if while doing so he should get 
an opportunity of seeing Mrs. Beaufort, why, then, he 
could speak to her of Mr. Gaspack, and his object could 
be accomplished — so he thought — without an appear- 
ance of design, but accidentally and naturally, as it were. 
Or, even if Mrs. Beaufort should not happen to appear, 
what was to prevent him, as a last resort, from sending 


108 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


up his name to her ? At least, by calling on Miss Inth- 
way first, he should get more time to think the matter 
over. 

But before he had decided definitely, even in his own 
mind, what would be his wisest course, all things con- 
sidered, he found himself already in the pathway leading 
to the mansion, where there was now no longer any pos- 
sibility of retreat. He had nothing to do but nervously 
and hastily to ring the door-bell. When the servant 
came to answer it, he uttered the name that happened to 
be nearest to his lips, and announced himself as a visitor 
for Miss Inthway. 

That announcement raised a fiutter in the Beaufort 
household : in the servant-girl, who was a naughty Koman 
Catholic, and giggled in Mr. Thompson’s very face when 
she heard him utter the name; in Mrs. Beaufort and 
Bessie and Martha, who could only think that this was 
the matured result of the pastor’s walking up and down 
so many times in the road before he had entered at their 
gate ; in the little children in the nursery, who were 
now let loose for a recess, to their own delight and their 
mother’s provocation, “ who couldn’t see why the pastor 
hadn’t had sense enough to call on their teacher at a more 
appropriate hour ; ” and last, not least, in Miss Inthway, 
who had also witnessed the preliminary promenade, and, 
conscious of the manner in which she had recently fasci- 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


109 


nated Captain Loring, made her toilet before her mirror 
with the proud satisfaction of a woman who has reason 
to feel that her efforts in curling her hair and brushing 
her teeth, powdering her nose and pinching her cheeks, 
are not to be expended in vain. 


CHAPTEE X. 


HOW THE VACILLATINO FISHEb’s TACEXE WOULD NOT WOBK. 

Afteb a time — it seemed to the pastor a very long 
time indeed, for during it he had repented over and over 
again that he had not called first for Mrs. Beaufort — the 
object of his visit, dressed evidently with unusual care, 
descended into the parlor. 

‘‘ I happened to be taking a walk this morning,” said 
the pastor (ah ! Mr. Thompson, what has become of your 
veracity ? “ Happened ! ” Your very attire shows that 

you had prepared yourself for this walk, and that most 
carefully) — “I happened to be taking a walk, and I 
thought I would call in for a moment and give you a 
little pastoral visit. You said, you know, that there was 
something that you wished to ask me.” 

Unlucky Mr. Thompson ! Unhappy Miss Inthway ! 
Why could not this man have given this woman reason 
to believe that he had thought of her before he had 
reached the road, and had now some personal as well as 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


Ill 


pastoral interest in her ? Had he taken such a course, he 
would have spoken only the truth to her. Had he done 
so, she, it is possible, in the days to come, would have 
spoken only the truth of him. But this, alas ! he did not 
do. He blundered in his very first expression to her. 
He blundered, further on in his conversation, when he 
left the governess to infer that he was more than wil- 
ling to discuss Mr. Gaspack’s methods with Mrs. Beau- 
fort, or, indeed, with any other of the people of the parish 
with whom he was accustomed to consult. He blun- 
dered when, in answer to a direct question that the gov- 
erness put, he left her to infer that what he wished to say 
would not be wholly commendatory of the reformer’s 
efforts.” He blundered, finally and fatally, when, with 
a fatuity that seemed to-day to possess him, he informed 
the governess that he wished to call this morning not 
only upon herself, hut also upon the lady of the house 
and her daughters. 

In such circumstances, after so much had been 
made of the pastor’s request to see her only, it may be 
inferred that the governess felt complimented by this 
statement no more highly than did the other members of 
the household, to whom she hastened to communicate it. 
Mrs. Beaufort, after receiving a full report of the pastor’s 
conversation with Miss Inthway, informed her daughters 
that she would excuse them to their visitor, and, all aglow 


112 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


with indignation to think that he had been endeavoring 
in an underhand way, as she supposed, to weaken the 
influence in her own household of her dear friend, Mr. 
Gaspack, descended into his presence with a tread whose 
very sound appeared to marshal about her the forces of 
an impending battle. 

“ Good-moming, Mr. Thompson,” she said. “ I’m 
sorry to hear that you’re not pleased with Mr. Gaspack, 
and have been expressing your complaints to the mem- 
bers of my household. And he’s been doing the poor 
girl so much good — doing her soul, Mr. Thompson — 
doing not only the practical but the spiritual life of all of 
us so much good during his stay here ! It’s a dangerous 
thing, Mr. Thompson — I won’t say more — I’U only say 
it’s a very dangerous thing to undermine, behind his 
back, the influence of a person who, whatever may be his 
faults, is really accomplishing what we all know Mr. Gas- 
pack to be accomplishing here.” 

Alas for Mr. Thompson ! How had he ever tried to 
undermine Mr. Gaspack’s influence, or, in fact, the influ- 
ence of any other person, behind his back? This was 
the one thing, more than anything else, that his sensitive, 
cautious, honorable nature supposed that it had never, 
in any possible circumstances, been misled into doing. 
Last night, when Martha Beaufort had been talking to 
him about her mother’s friend, he had been careful not 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


113 


to drop a single syllable that should let her know his own 
opinions of this friend. To-day he was sure that not a 
syllable of the kind had escaped him while conversing 
with Miss Inthway. Unfortunate man ! he had forgotten 
that he had been dealing with the members of a sex 
whose penetration is so keen as to require alone the 
glancing of an eye or the waving of a finger in order to 
detect the inmost secret of the most secretive soul ; from 
whom the springs of speech may burst and fiow unceas- 
ingly in answer to a gesture slight as that which, of old, 
nerved the arm of Moses at Massah. Mr. Thompson real- 
ly had uttered nothing against Mr. Gaspack ; yet doubt- 
less both Miss Martha and Miss Inthway would have been 
ready to take an oath before a court of justice that he 
had uttered everything that was necessary in order to 
convey to them the most comprehensive understanding 
conceivable of his opinions. 

And perhaps he had done so ! A poor man hardly 
knows what he has or has not done when a lady, whose 
respect he is anxious to preserve, begins to accuse him. 
He can scarcely insinuate, even in the mildest manner, 
that she or any of her friends have been lying, without 
incurring a new accusation of what in her opinion is the 
worst fault possible — impoliteness. In the present in- 
stance, moreover. Miss Martha or Miss Inthway had been 
Mrs. Beaufort’s informant. Could it have been Miss 


114 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


Martha? the pastor asked himself. If so, was he pre- 
pared to say that she had indulged in misrepresentation ? 
More than this, was he prepared to think even that she 
had done so ? Might he himself not have said a good 
deal more than he had supposed that he had said ? With 
these doubts in his mind, he was simply giving a truthful 
expression to what was there when he refrained from 
attempting to deny, point-blank, Mrs. Beaufort’s accusa- 
tion, or even to remove the edge from it by explaining, 
as he might have done, the caution that he had exercised 
when merely answering, as he could not have helped 
doing, the direct questions concerning Mr. Gaspack 
asked by those who were now, apparently, so ready to 
make accusations. 

By adopting the course that he did, he gave Mrs. 
Beaufort every advantage over him in the conversation 
that followed. And yet all the while he was in the right 
with reference to the subject about which they were talk- 
ing. As pastor of the church, he undoubtedly had a 
right to say to any of his parishioners a good deal more 
about Mr. Gaspack’s method of presenting truth than, 
according to any supposition, it could be proved that he 
had said, and this either before Mr. Gaspack’s face or be- 
hind his back ; and possibly Mrs. Beaufort herself would 
have recognized this right if only, instead of trying to 
make excuses to her and arguing with her (as a bachelor 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


115 


friend of mine affirms that a man should never try to do 
with a woman), he had ventured, as her pastor, to assert 
it; if only he had been less sensitive about wounding her 
feelings, less thoughtful about the interests of his church, 
less careful about keeping in the good graces of Miss 
Martha. And yet, because her antagonist was willing to 
waive a natural tendency to self-assertion, because he was 
sensitive, thoughtful, and careful, this woman during her 
conversation with him had lost aU the remaining respect 
that she had had for him, either as a pastor or a man. 
We human beings are queerly constituted creatures, are 
we not ? 

Of course, under such conditions, the result of the 
conversation was very different from what Mr. Thompson 
would have liked. After a number of pauses and appeals, 
in every one of which he felt that he was assuming more 
and more the character of a stranger to the family rather 
than its friend, as well as of an outsider of the church 
rather than its pastor, Mrs. Beaufort declared emphati- 
cally that, as for her, she would have nothing whatever 
to do with asking Mr. Gaspack to discontinue his services ; 
that, if the pastor chose to do so, why, he might do so ; 
but she, for one, would not be instrumental in it, would 
not approve of it, would not defend it ; and, of course, 
the pastor knew that these latter words meant much more 
than they had expressed. 


116 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


Accordingly, lie rose and took his leave, with, possibly, 
more sti&ess, but not with less politeness, than if nothing 
out of the ordinary course had happened. But the door 
had hardly closed behind him before his heart was beat- 
ing violently, and his blood surging wildly — ^it seemed to 
make every nerve within him tremble — ^to think of the 
presumption and impertinence of this woman, and of his 
own submissive pusillanimity in view of it. He had sac- 
rificed his very manhood, so he thought, upon the altar 
of his fancy for this woman’s daughter, who perhaps — 
yes, now that he had come to think of it, who probably — 
had lied about his conversation with her on the evening 
previous. 

In such a mood as this, he had turned into a path that 
led first through Mrs. Beaufort’s garden and orchard, and 
then across the fields, by a short cut, to his home. He 
had gone but a few steps before he came to an arbor 
through which the path in which he was walking passed. 
The arbor was surrounded on every side by grape-vines, 
now laden with the fruit of the season, which completely 
shielded, from the view of one who was on the outside, 
any person who might happen to be within it. What 
was his surprise, on entering it, to find seated, in an easy- 
chair that stood on a little platform at one side of the 
way, the identical young lady concerning whom his 
thoughts were now occupied! She was dressed in a 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


117 


charming morning wrapper, and apparently hard at work 
on some embroidery. As he caught sight of her, his first 
resolve was to hurry past her, with only a slight bow of 
recognition. He thought that he had had enough to do, 
for one morning at least, with the members of this family. 
But this resolve the young lady herself prevented him 
from carrying into execution. 

“ Why, Mr. Thompson, you are not going to pass me 
by in that style, are you ? Come, I really want to know, 
you know, if we’re really going to get rid of that horrid 
man ? — It isn’t wrong for me to call him a horrid man, 
is it ? ” she added, half seriously, haK playfully, as she 
seemed to detect something unwontedly sober in his 
countenance. 

“ Ho, of course,” said the pastor, with a little hesita- 
tion and no little embarrassment, “ you can call him what 
you choose, of course — only I oughtn’t to be held respon- 
sible for anything you choose to say yourseK when we’re 
together.” 

“ Of course not, Mr. Thompson, of course not,” said 
the girl, with a satisfied little shake of the head, and 
pausing for a moment to enjoy inwardly the effect of the 
contrast between the bright colors of her gown and the 
embroidery work, which her pretty little hands were 
spreading out and stroking on her lap. 

“Did I say anything to you last night,” asked the 


118 


MODEKN FISHERS OF MEN. 


pastor, " to lead you to infer that I agreed with you in 
what you said of Mr. Gaspack ? ” 

“ Why, you did agree with me, didn’t you ? ” said the 
other, with a quick glance at him of those confiding eyes. 

“ But, Miss Martha, did I say anything against him ? ” 
asked the pastor again. 

“ Say anything ! Why, of course, didn’t you ? Why, 
what a ridiculous question ! ” exclaimed the girl, bursting 
into a laugh. “ Do you suppose that I remember every- 
thing you say to me, Mr. Thompson ? Of course I think 
a very, very great deal about it, as becomes a poor little 
meek parishioner, but then — ” 

Really,” said the pastor, “ but I am in earnest. With 
your mother, at least, if not with you, what I said, or am 
supposed to have said to you, is a serious question.” 

“With my mother? ” asked the girl (she had the far- 
away look in her eyes now). “ What has she to do about 
it?” 

“ You know perfectly well how much she thinks of 
Mr. Gaspack,” was the answer. 

“ I should think I did,” said the girl (she had the con- 
fiding look in her eyes again). “ Poor, dear mamma ! 
Why, it’s perfectly absurd ! You’ve no idea how she’s 
fascinated by him. But he is such an old humbug, isn’t 
he?” 

“ Now, Miss Martha,” said the pastor, with a conscious 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


119 


warming of his heart that produced a perceptible soften- 
ing of his tones, “you are trying to get me to commit 
myself again.” He was beginning to think that Mrs. 
Beaufort’s state of mind might not be, after all, so very 
serious a matter, nor likely to produce any very serious 
estrangement between himself and the rest of the family. 

“ And, pray, what if you do commit yourself ? ” said 
the young lady. “ If I were a man, now, I should not be 
afraid to commit myself. I wish I were a man once.” 

“ Why, what would you do then ? ” asked the man. 
He was beginning to feel very much interested. 

“ Why, I should just say and do everything I wanted 
to say and do,” replied she. 

Could tliis be a hint, designed for him to take ? the 
pastor asked himself. He had often heard, among his 
bachelor friends, that young ladies were accustomed to 
give such hints. 

“Would you say everything?” he asked. 

“Why not?” she said — “for then, you know, I 
shouldn’t be afraid of anybody — of mamma. Miss Intk 
way, Mr. Gaspack, or anybody else.” 

“ You wouldn’t say everything that was in your heart, 
would you ? ” asked the other, with a sudden sensation of 
weakness, as though, in the region of his own heart, some 
elements of a small Vesuvius had begun to work and 
were melting away every nerve and muscle in the pro- 


120 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


cess of their development. In fact, his whole frame felt 
so limp that it seemed impossible for him to stand up any 
longer. It was absolutely necessary for him to sit down 
on the platform, immediately in front of her. As he did 
so, in his blundering way, he placed his finger accident- 
ally against her little slipper, just protruding from be- 
neath her skirts. That silk conductor sent a thrill through 
all his frame, like a stroke of electricity. The only soul 
that still remained in the world to uphold the name of 
the Dickories began to fear that he was about to lose his 
senses. Perhaps his comrade thought so too, for she 
drew her foot in hastily, shoved her chair a little back, 
and said, with a sort of half laugh : 

“ You haven’t room, Mr. Thompson. Let me give 
you room. Now, tell me what it was — the thing you had 
it in your heart to say about Mr. Gaspack ? ” 

“ Is she a coquette ? Is she fiirting with me ? ” thought 
the pastor ; and these thoughts, it must be confessed, did 
not lessen the fascination with which he was beginning 
to surmise the fate to which nothing that he could think 
of but destiny seemed to be impelling him. 

As she had drawn back from him, he thought that he 
would draw back from her, both in body and in spirit. 
“ Do you think,” he asked, “ that I said anything last 
night to warrant you in using my opinion with your 
mother as an argument against Mr. Gaspack ? ” 


MODEKN FISHERS OF MEN. 


121 


‘‘ What do you mean ? ” she said, stopping her work 
abruptly, and looking at him with a dazed expression. 

‘‘ Isn’t it better in all cases,” he went on, “ to let peo- 
ple speak for themselves? Knowing your mother’s ad- 
miration for Mr. Gaspack, wouldn’t it have been better 
to let me tell her, if I didn’t like him ? — especially as I 
didn’t say anything whatever to you about him ? ” 

“ So you think that I’ve been tattling, do you ? ” said 
the girl, blushing deeply, throwing the far-away look into 
her eyes, and making her fingers fiy nervously like an 
angry bird up and down upon her embroidery. 

‘‘ I sincerely hope you have not,” he answered. 

“ Why, Mr. Thompson,” she said, gradually checking 
the velocity of her fingers, and restoring the confiding 
look to her eyes, didn’t you know that that would be the 
very thing to set her against you ? ” (The pastor hoped 
she would keep on talking. If she stopped, he felt sure 
that, even as far away as she sat, she would hear the vio- 
lent thumping of his heart.) “ And you know we mustn’t 
do that. We must get the man away. Poor Captain 
Loring, what a time he had of it last night ! Such a 
reception for a stranger to get in our village ! You ought 
to have seen him in the vestibule there with the boys — 
oh, it was the most comical sight ! He was so witty, too. 
But then it’s a real shame, you know.” 

“ Oh, it was from Captain Loring you wanted Mr. 


122 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


Gaspack to go away ? ” said the pastor, with a slight sug- 
gestion of sarcasm in his tone. 

But the girl had not noticed it. “ Of course,” she 
answered, ‘‘ from all of us— and the captain’s such a nice 
man to have about here, you know.” 

“ Yes, I thought you were getting particularly inter- 
ested in him,” said the other, in a tone still more satirical. 

“ Why, what an idea 1 ” exclaimed the girl, half petu- 
lantly, but earnestly. “ I have never seen him but four 
or five times in my life ! ” 

“ And how many times,” asked the pastor, very well 
pleased to note her petulance, and revealing his pleasure — 
how many times does a young lady need to see a man 
before she becomes particularly interested in him? ” 

“ Ah, that depends on who it is,” answered the young 
lady, with the most fascinating httle shrug of her shoul- 
ders, and a fiush of her fair face, out of which shot a 
glance of those confiding eyes that seemed to be thrown 
at her comrade’s very soul, then to be snatched back sud- 
denly, and hid under her drooping eyelids. Had it caught 
and drawn his soul back with it? For a moment the 
pastor verily believed that it had ; then with a sudden 
impulse, like that of a dazed or drowning man, who, 
without knowing why he does so, stretches out his hand 
for something that may save him, his own hand made a 
motion toward that little hand at work on the embroidery. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


123 


“ Miss Martha,” said he, “ I want yon — ” 

But that sentence was destined never to be finished. 
With a slight scream of “ Why, Mr. Thompson ! ” the 
maiden, startled partly by the strange and sudden earnest- 
ness that filled the countenance of the man before her, 
partly by a shadow falling in the pathway just beyond 
him, sprang to her feet with an impetus that overthrew 
the chair behind her, and dropped the embroidery work 
to the fioor in front of her — and with the embroidery, 
alas ! the pastor’s hand and arm and trunk and face, which 
in the impulse that had moved him had followed the 
hand toward its precarious resting-place, and now had, 
sympathetically, been made partakers of its downfall. 

Just at this moment, Mrs. Beaufort’s form appeared 
within the arbor. To say that her daughter’s face was as 
red as became the rising of a sun of romance, or the pas- 
tor’s as became the setting of one, is to say no more than 
the reader can imagine for himself. But if some would 
have thought the scene was ludicrous, Mrs. Beaufort, 
after her own experience of the morning, was not pre- 
pared to recognize its comic features. 

What does this mean ? ” she said to Martha, sternly. 
“Is this another result of your coquetting? And you, 
sir” (turning to the pastor), “have you dared to make 
advances to my daughter?” 

“IS^o, mamma, no,” said the girl, who had covered 
6 


124 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


her face with her hands. “ It was aU my fault, the whole 
of it.” 

“ Have you been making proposals to her ? ” went on 
Mrs. Beaufort, still more angry after this interruption. 

‘‘ Ho, no,” the girl replied again. “ It was all an acci- 
dent. He was only talking about Mr. Loring — Captain 
Loring — and he ought to know that I don’t care anything 
particular about him, and I never will care anything par- 
ticular about him, never, never, never.” 

There,” said Mrs. Beaufort, turning to the pastor, 
“ you have your sentence ; perhaps it would be wise 
for you to go.” 

And the pastor went. 


CHAPTER XI. 


DISCUSSION CONCERNING DIFFERENT KINDS OF TACKLE, AND 
CONCLUSIONS THEREFROM. 

As Captain Loring was returning from the city, in 
the afternoon following the morning visit of the pastor 
that has been described, he looked up from his seat in 
the railway-car to see Bessie and Martha Beaufort, who 
had been visiting or shopping somewhere, entering it a 
few moments before it reached Chartville. The only 
vacant seats in the car happened to be the one in which 
he was sitting and another just in front of it, the back of 
which had been turned over, so that the members of a 
party who had just left the train could sit face to face. 
Of course, the young man rose and bowed the ladies into 
these seats. 

Both of them appeared to him to be unusually re- 
served ; and recalling his very interesting encounter with 
Miss Martha in the vestibule of the church after the at- 
tack made upon him by Mr. Gaspack, he attributed the 


126 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


cause of this reserve solely to Miss Bessie. Her relations 
to Mr. Gaspack and her consequent disapproval of his 
own course on the previous evening, as well as of the 
course of her sister in leaving the chui’ch in order to 
speak to him, had probably had the effect, he thought, 
not only of estranging Miss Bessie from him, but also of 
suppressing, while in her presence, any manifestation of 
friendliness which, otherwise. Miss Martha might have 
been inclined to show him. He took occasion, therefore, 
as soon as an opportunity was offered, of explaining what 
had happened, so as to remove, in a pleasant way, and 
without blaming even Mr. Gaspack, what he presumed 
to be Miss Bessie’s misapprehensions. 

“ I suppose,” he said, “ they’re all right about it. I 
should never have gone into the Sunday-school, any- 
way.” 

“ You’re not going to leave it, then, are you?” asked 
Bessie, manifesting, for the first time, some real interest 
in what he was saying. 

“ Why, yes,” said the captain, “ of course ; as things 
are, I can’t stay.” 

‘‘ Ho, I’d never go into the school again in my life,” 
said Martha. 

“I’m very sorry about it,” said Bessie. “Weren’t 
you getting to like the school ? ” 

“ Like it ! of course I was,” answered the captain ; 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


127 


‘‘ but what does that matter ? A man can’t stay where 
he isn’t wanted. And the church isn’t mine: it’s the 
people’s. And there’s no mistaking what they thought 
of me last night.” 

‘‘ But people may be mistaken,” said Bessie. “ They 
haven’t had things explained to them. Besides, very 
likely they don’t need any explanations. All such troubles 
blow over in a few days, you know. You haven’t said 
anything to your boys about leaving, have you ? — to 
Johnny, the barber’s son ? ” 

“ I don’t know. Let me see — why, yes, I think I 
have.” 

“ That’s too bad,” said Bessie. “ Do you think they’ll 
be there to-night ? ” 

“ I’m sure I don’t know,” said the captain. 

“ But you’ll be there yourself, won’t you ? ” asked she. 
“ You know its only a temperance meeting, open to all, 
not a Sunday-school.” 

“ I’m not in the habit,” said the captain, with a slight 
manifestation of feeling, “ of placing myself under fire 
twice when — if only because I’m afraid that somebody 
else who happens to be about may get hit — I don’t think 
it prudent to avail myself of the privilege of firing back.” 

Bessie blushed so deeply that the captain regretted 
that he had allowed himself to use such strong language. 

‘‘ I was only thinking,” she remarked, “ that there 


128 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


might be some disturbance, and that possibly you might 
be able to do something to prevent it.” 

“ I was going to stay away,” said the captain, ‘‘ for 
the purpose of preventing it.” 

Martha did not seem to be particularly sorrowful over 
her sister’s discomfiture, for she exclaimed, petulantly : “ I 
think the whole thing is just as hateful as it can be. I’m 
sure I shan’t go near the place ; and if I were you. Cap- 
tain Loring, I wouldn’t go either.” 

“ If you think so,” thought the captain to himself, 
“ and if you’re not going to be there, you may be pretty 
sure that I’ll not be there.” 

And then he could not help contrasting the difference 
in the ways in which those two girls regarded him. 
“Miss Martha,” he thought, “has nothing for me but 
sympathy. Her whole soul is enlisted in my behalf. 
She is just as indignant — in fact, she is a little more in- 
dignant over the insult that I received last night than I 
am myself. The girl evidently admires me. But Miss 
Bessie, she just as evidently admires Mr. Gaspack, and 
so she wishes to defend him from my dislike and from 
the dislike of the people, and from any disturbance that 
the boys may be inclined to make in his meeting this 
evening.” Yet he could not help adding, to himself : 
“ What fine tact she uses in doing this ! Why, all the 
way through, she has prevented me from knowing any- 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


129 


tiling, whether favorable or unfavorable, that she thinks 
of Mr. Gaspack’s action, or even that she thinks anything 
at all about it, or that she even supposes it to have any- 
thing whatever to do with my state of mind ! ” 

And the more he thought about this fact, the more he 
thought of it, and of her of whom it was true. ‘‘ By-and- 
by,” he said to his heart, “this girl will bring about a 
reconciliation between Mr. Gaspack and myself : that is, 
not a complete reconciliation — I can never respect the 
man — ^but one sufficient to enable me to regain a footing 
with her mother and with the whole family ; ” and, as he 
looked at Miss Martha, gratitude came into liis heart, in 
view of Miss Bessie’s kind soul, gentle manner, and ready 
tact. 

But I am anticipating. These thoughts had scarcely 
assumed definite shape in his mind, when they had 
reached Chartville, and had descended from the car on to 
the station platform. As they did so, they found there 
the Kev. Mr. Thompson. As he often came down to the 
train of an evening to meet his friend, his being there 
was no surprise to the captain. It was a surprise, how- 
ever, to see him give a hurried and unusually formal bow 
to the two ladies, and then to hear him say : “ Good-even- 
ing, Dick. I suppose you’ll want to walk home with the 
young ladies. I’ve a little errand up the street. We’ll 
meet, I suppose, at supper.” 


130 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


Of course, Captain Loring would not have thought of 
doing anything else than walking home by the way of the 
Beaufort mansion. And, this evening, he felt abundantly 
repaid for doing so. For some reason. Miss Martha’s re- 
serve had vanished completely. Her banter was unusu- 
ally peppery, and her mood almost hilarious. He was 
sure that he had never seen her appear so charming. 

“ That girl,” he thought, as he left her — and again he 
was contrasting her confiding manner with the reserve of 
her sister — “ that girl certainly Hkes me.” 

“ You never knew her in such good spirits,” he said 
to the pastor, when they met in their rooms, just before 
supper. “Confound it, what’s got into you? Why 
didn’t you go up with us ? By Jove, they’re a mighty 
nice family, these Beauforts.” 

“ I’m sure I don’t object to your finding them so,” 
said the pastor, with a little smack of bitterness in his 
tones. 

“ Look here, Dick,” cried the other, “ what’s the mat- 
ter with you ? What has happened ? I thought you had 
the inside track there.” 

“Well, if I had,” said the pastor, “my game’s up 
now, that’s aU.” 

“ Come, come, old fellow, no more of your blues,” said 
the captain. “Don’t let your fancies get the better of 
you.” 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


131 


“ It’s no fancy,” replied the other. “ I’m only saying 
what I know.” 

The pastor evidently did not feel in a communicative 
mood, and the captain was not one to extort from a friend 
a reluctant communication. But what he had heard both 
troubled and — though he was loath to admit it, even to 
himself — pleased him. He was troubled because his 
friend was troubled, and he was not entirely sure but 
that, in some unimaginable manner, his own conduct on 
the previous evening had been the cause of this trouble. 
At the same time he was not indifferent to the sugges- 
tion that possibly this trouble had arisen from something 
that had occurred between the pastor and Miss Martha. 
There was that in the manner of the two when they had 
met this afternoon on the station platform that seemed to 
point to this. And if such were the case, why, then the 
captain was conscious that he should feel very sorry for 
the pastor, and conscious, too — and conscientious about 
it — ^that he would have done anything in his power to 
save the pastor from the occasion of his sorrow. But, 
then, there was a good deal of sorrow in the world. One 
could never remedy the whole of it. One was obliged to 
take things as he found them. And here was the pastor : 
how had he found Miss Martha ? She evidently had not 
shared in his feelings. Whatever had occurred had af- 
forded her satisfaction and joy rather than sorrow. This 


132 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


was evident from her way of acting this afternoon. If 
so, and if, as seemed likely, there had been any advances 
on the part of his friend, or if there had been only a 
quarrel between him and her : under any supposition it 
was evident that Martha at least had entertained no spe- 
cial regard for the pastor ; and if she had not, why, then, 
thought the captain, “ the way is perfectly clear and per- 
fectly honorable for — any one else who may wish to ob- 
tain her favor.” 

And, upon this small glimmer of hope for himself, 
the captain kept blowing the fumes of his cigar that even- 
ing for hours and hours, until it had been fanned and 
fanned so as to fill the whole horizon of his future. 
Through the dim wreaths of the smoke he saw before 
him the outlines of a home. How beautiful it seemed ! 
And in that home he saw that sweet, sweet face, with its 
confiding eyes, and now it was multiplied and multiplied. 
Ah ! foolish young man, who never yet had had experi- 
ence of a real home, what glorious visions did he not 
see! 

The spells in which he felt himseH bound were not 
broken apart till later in the evening, when he heard 
strange noises issuing from the lecture-room of the 
church, which was just across the yard from the house 
in which he was lodging. Then he recalled what Miss 
Bessie (“ What a confoundedly wise girl she is ! ” he 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


133 


thought to himself) had said about a possible disturb- 
ance, and about the possibility of his being able to do 
something toward quieting it. So he rose and listened, 
and he heard what induced him to draw on, much more 
quickly than usual, his boots and coat and cap. 


CHAPTEE XII. 


HOW AH EHTEEPRI8IHG FISHER WAS CAPSIZED. 

To understand the reason of the noises mentioned at 
the close of the preceding chapter, we must go back a 
little in our story. 

In accordance with her intention declared to the cap- 
tain, Martha Beaufort had remained at home this even- 
ing. So had Mrs. Beaufort. The excitement of the 
morning probably had proved too great a strain upon the 
sensibilities of both of them to allow of their doing other- 
wise. Only Bessie sat with Mr. Gaspack in the Beaufort 
carriage when it drove up to the church-steps but a single 
minute before the hour announced for the opening of the 
services. 

On entering the room, Mr. Gaspack looked as though 
he thought that the hour of his greatest triumph had ar- 
rived. Every seat was filled, and the audience appeared 
to be composed almost exclusively of men and boys of 
the lower classes, the very ones that his efforts had been 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


135 


designed especially to reach. As one could see no empty 
benches anywhere, some of the men began to rise and 
offer their places to Miss Bessie and a few more ladies 
who had arrived at the same time with her. But the 
pastor begged them all to keep their seats ; and he and 
the sexton and two other young men went somewhere 
else in the building, and brought from there two settees, 
and, caiTying them down the aisle above the heads of the 
people, placed them on the little platform where the desk 
was. These were all that the platform would hold, but 
they were enough to accommodate the ladies ; and when 
the latter had been escorted up to them, and had taken 
their seats upon them, facing the audience, the utterances 
of ‘‘the boys” conveyed abundant information of the 
degree in which they had all agreed that the general ap- 
pearance of the room had been improved. 

As usual, after the preliminary exercises, Mr. G-aspack 
rose to give his address. It has been intimated that this 
gentleman was not on every occasion given to being dis- 
creet. It has been intimated also that the main thing 
that prevented him from being so was his own extrava- 
gant estimate of the value of his own opinions. Why 
should he refrain from ventilating opinions so important 
for the world to know, whenever he got a chance to do 
so, whether or not they were connected closely with the 
subject tliat he had to present, or whether or not they 


136 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


were likely to prove influential with the audience to 
whom they were to be presented ? On Sunday evening, 
as we have found, he had gone out of his way to enlight- 
en those before him by exhibiting to them his views on 
the subject of theology; on Monday evening he had 
shown up his views upon church polity ; and on the even- 
ing that we are now considering he was moved to con- 
tinue the good work that he had begun by making a rev- 
elation to them of his views — and very decided views 
they were — on the subject of their State politics. 

Unfortunately, a rumor, started in all probability by 
his enemies in the bar-rooms, who wished to injure his 
influence as a reformer, had been circulating through the 
village during the day — in fact, during two or three days 
— that Mr. Gaspack, who lived in an adjoining town, but 
in the same district as Chartville, was anxious, in connec- 
tion with an ensuing election, to obtain the “ temperance ’’ 
nomination for the Legislature. As soon, therefore, as 
he began to touch on politics, many in the audience — 
even those who had previously believed this report to be 
a slander — began to think that it might possibly be true ; 
and, as most of them were strong adherents of existing 
parties, and did not sympathize with the temperance 
movement as a political measure, they could not resist 
the idea that suggested itself, that this man’s interest in 
politics, so vehemently paraded before them, was largely 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


137 


a matter of self-interest. Moreover, with this idea once 
in their minds, when they recalled the similar vehemence 
that he had exhibited on previous occasions in behaK of 
doctrinal and practical religion, they could not avoid a 
suggestion that that too might be attributable to similar 
motives. In fact, even those who had agreed most heart- 
ily with the expressions of his religious views, now that 
they had come to find him expressing certain views with 
reference to politics with which they did not agree — 
even those who had derived the most inspiring sort of 
spiritual satisfaction from his method of consigning every 
one else in the room except themselves to the infernal 
regions, now that they had come to find that he was 
ready to consign themselves also to the same — began 
to question very seriously whether, viewed either as a 
politician, a religionist, or a reformer, the man before 
them was not a charlatan and a hypocrite, whether his 
utterances were entitled to any more consideration than 
the “ sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal,” to which, as 
some of them began to recall now, St. Paul compares all 
expressions that are devoid of charity. 

Accordingly, at the conclusion of Mr. Gaspack’s 
speech, such thoughts as these that had instinctively 
sprung up in the minds of many, and been conveyed 
through vigorous whisperings to the minds of many 
more who were about them, had served to alienate from 


138 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


him the sympathy of fully two-thirds of those present. 
The audience had lost confidence in the reformer, and 
from this fact alone were beginning to surmise that Cap- 
tain Loring and the pastor (if, indeed, the opinions of 
these gentlemen had been correctly reported to them) had 
been right in their estimate of him. 

As will be seen, this state of feeling furnished an ad- 
mirable preparation for the manner in which “ the boys,” 
just at this moment, were destined to break in upon the 
regularity of the proceedings. I^o sooner had Mr. Gas- 
pack taken his seat than they began to call out, “ Barber 
Joe ! Barber Joe ! Barber Joe ! ” 

Every one could perceive that no further speeches 
could take place in the meeting until Joe the barber, who 
was present, and who, although very illiterate, was an 
extremely popular man in his way, especially with his 
own set, had made some sort of a response to this call. 
So the pastor, who had risen for another purpose, after a 
moment’s hesitation, turned to the barber, and, with one 
of his habitual bows and a wave of the hand, signified 
his desire to yield the fioor to him. This brought Joe to 
his feet and started some applause, which, every now and 
then throughout his speech, was started anew; but as 
often as it began, it would stop when the people would 
catch sight of the pastor shaking his hand at them, to in- 
dicate that the applause was out of order. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


139 


“ I told some of the boys at the corner grocery this 
mominV’ said Joe, “how I wa’n’t afraid to ’spress my 
sentiments at the meetin’ here to-night. I s’pose that’s 
why that they’re callin’ on me ; I s’pose that’s why that 
they’re givin’ me a chance. What I says to ’em this 
mornin’ was this : ‘ I don’t want,’ says I, ‘ to say nothin’ 
agin nobody ; but I don’t want,’ says I, ‘ nobody to say 
nothin’ agin nobody else.’ An’ the way things has been 
said agin a man as I knows to be a good man here, last 
night, hadn’t ought to go on without a word from a man 
as knows what that man is — I mean the man as was 
spoken aginst last night. Captain Loring. He ain’t here 
to-night. Why ain’t he here? Ain’t he a temp’rance 
man ? How many of you ever see him drunk, or drink- 
in’ anythin’ except tea or coffee ? and everybody knows 
they is always good in digestin’. Why ain’t he a tem- 
p’rance man? Must a temp’rance man always be goin’ 
about like this feller here ” (pointing at Mr. Gaspack), “ a- 
blackguardin’ and a-swearin’ and a-lyin’, too, about every- 
body as don’t think as he does ? And he says he ain’t no 
Christian, either.” (Voice: “Who says it?”) “This 
feller as has been blowin’ us all up here. He says the 
captain ain’t no Christian. Ain’t no Christian ? Wall, I 
ain’t this church, an’ p’r’aps I don’t know what a Chris- 
tian is. But I know this much: he’s the only man as 
ever got my boy Johnny to go to Sunday-school — an’ he 


140 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


likes it, too — don’t jon, Johnny?” And the audience 
laughed to see Johnny’s head (the boy was standing near 
the pulpit) pop down out of sight behind the convenient 
form of a portly member of Chartville society, who oc- 
cupied the seat in front of him. 

“ You may ask my old woman, then,” Joe went on 
to say, at which the head of this estimable authority, who 
was sitting at his side, moved downward as rapidly and 
vigorously as her son’s had done. For a moment it really 
seemed as though neither son nor wife was to give coun- 
tenance to the father and husband’s words. But, fortu- 
nately for the reputation of the family, the mother was 
destined ultimately to evince the courage that the occasion 
demanded. Modesty did not overcome her completely. 
Her head soon began to return to its former and normal 
position, after which, as though intent to do penance for 
its momentary dereliction, or because the muscles of the 
back and neck had been fatally limbered by its first vio- 
lent declination, it continued to keep up an incessant 
downward and upward movement, like the nodding 
Chinaman in a crockery store, all through the remain- 
der of her husband’s speech. It was really a tender 
tribute to the harmony of their married life, or to the 
completeness of her husband’s discipline, the way that 
henceforth every word that he uttered seemed to meet 
with her approval. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


141 


“ Yes,” said Joe, “ an’ he’s the only man in this town, 
too, as has ever asked me, in a civil way, to come to 
church here. He’s the only man as has ever asked my 
old woman to come to church, either ; and he’s the only 
man as could ever git us to come to church. And if he 
ain’t a Christian, feller-citizens, why I say it’s a great 
deal worse off for the church, under them circumstances, 
than it is for him. An’ if you folks here is a-thinkin’, if 
this feller here as has been talkin’ politics to-night, and 
religion last night — and no one don’t know how many 
things as he don’t know about — if you folks is a-thinkin’, 
and this feller’s a-thinkin’, that we’re goin’ to swallow 
him down whole and throw up the captain, ’cause he don’t 
like him, why all I’ve got to say is, that he’s altogether 
too big a mouthful.” 

And with this strain upon his imagination in order to 
bring out a climax worthy of the occasion, the barber 
sank into his seat in a state of exhaustion, while all the 
rest of the room, upon whom the mantle of eloquence 
that had dropped from his lifeless figure seemed to have 
fallen, began — the whole of them, as it appeared to the 
pastor — to rise and to wish to speak, at once. 

But Mr. Gaspack was a man who was accustomed to 
pride himself upon being equal to any emergency. As 
soon as the barber had finished, therefore, without giving 
the pastor a chance even to smooth over the difficulty, as 


142 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


probably it was not too late yet to do, he sprang up in- 
tent to overwhelm his adversary with the gush of his 
abundant rhetoric. But, alas for Mr. Gaspack! in his 
eagerness to rise, he had upset the chair in which he had 
been sitting, and which had been rendered top-heavy by 
his enormous overcoat resting on its back. The chair 
and overcoat together fell to the floor, and, as they fell, 
an ominous crash was heard. Could it have been, as 
some surmised, the sound of a breaking bottle ? What- 
ever Mr. Gaspack may have thought or known about it, 
he addressed himseK boldly to the rescue of his fallen 
garment. He stooped down to lift it up. As it rose 
from the floor, a strange liquid was seen dripping from 
one of its pockets, and an odor, recalling unmistakably 
the most characteristic and reprehensible reminiscences 
of a bar-room, permeated to every corner of Chartville 
church lecture-room. 

Then ensued a scene that defies description: hiss- 
ing and stamping and jeering and pushing, and cries of 
“ Tar and feather him ! ” and “ Bide him on a rail ! ” and a 
general rush toward the platform, as if there had really 
been a serious intention to carry out some such fiendish 
purpose. It was of no avail for Mr. Gaspack to cry out. 
The bottle was not mine ! ” Ho one now would heed 
him, or believe a word that he might utter. As has been 
said, the man had already lost his reputation. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


143 


In the back part of the room were a few rough char- 
acters who had been brought to the meeting while un- 
der the influence of liquor. Their friends had hoped 
that, although in this condition, they might receive some 
beneflt there. Up to this time, they had kept themselves, 
or been kept by others, comparatively quiet. But now 
that all around them were giving way to excitement, they 
became simply furious. As the crowd immediately in 
front of Mr. Gaspack was too dense to allow of their 
reaching him, they began to take from their pockets their 
pipes, tobacco — anything that came to hand — and to fling 
these at the object of the popular detestation. 

As for the reformer himself, he had begun, before 
this, to lose courage; but when he saw these missiles 
coming, what, of all things, should he do but — in the ab- 
sence of any rear door in the building through which to es- 
cape — drop down and back behind the settees which were 
filled with the ladies, as if, forsooth, the risk of hitting 
them would deter a set of half-intoxicated and excited boys 
and rowdies from aiming their missiles in that direction ! 

“You cowardly fool,” cried the pastor, with a force 
of language that no one in the congregation ever after- 
ward found fault with him for using, “come out of 
there ! ” and amid a shower of missiles, as it seemed, he 
literally dragged and tumbled the large man back to the 
other side of the platform again. 


144 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


This action of the pastor proved to be the most effi- 
cient means that conld have been devised of bringing 
order out of that confusion. The crowd had already 
ceased their pelting when, with his forehead bleeding 
where it had been struck, he turned to the crowd, and, 
in a voice of authority, commanded them to be quiet. 
Then he told them to recall that there had been no proof 
whatever that the broken bottle had belonged to Mr. 
Gaspack — there had been only proof that somebody — 
and possibly it had been a trick — had put the bottle into 
Mr. Gaspack’s pocket. And he told them, in addition, 
that as for using any violence with Mr. Gaspack, who was 
now his guest, or laying even a finger on him, that 
should not be done so long as he himself had life or 
strength left in his body with which to prevent it. 

“ And in that, Dick, I’ll stand by you,” cried Captain 
Loring, as he appeared there, pushing up the aisle to 
take his stand beside the pastor. 

Of course, the tide had turned completely now, and 
the four or five rowdies who, with a few almost irresponsi- 
ble boys who had joined in with them, were the only ones 
to blame for the trouble, found themselves in such ill- 
favor that, if not forced out of the room by their more 
sober friends, they were glad to disappear from the build- 
ing as quietly as possible. 


CHAPTEE XIII. 


HOW AN INEXPEEIENCED FISHER RESCUED ONE OF THE 
VICTIMS. 

Meantime, a new sensation had arrested Captain Lor- 
ing’s attention. It was among the ladies. One of them 
appeared to have fainted; and the rest had gathered 
around her. A glance in that direction revealed to the 
captain the fact that the one who had fainted was Bessie 
Beaufort, and a stream of blood that trickled down her 
pale face pointed to a cause more serious than the mere 
excitement. 

“We must get her to the fresh air,” he cried, push- 
ing aside the ladies who were bending over her; and 
taking only the precaution to snatch a smelling-bottle 
from one of them, he had lifted the girl in his strong 
arms, as he might have lifted a child, and was carrying 
her down the aisle past the crowd that with difficulty 
gave way before him, through the vestibule, and out upon 
the lawn. As he had left the room, he had looked behind 


146 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


him, expecting to see some of the ladies following him. 
But, either because they had stopped to get their wrap- 
pings, or had been unable or too timid to work their way 
through the crowd, he found himself followed by only a 
few men and boys. 

He decided that he must take the girl across the lawn 
to the house where he was staying, and obtain the help of 
his landlady. And this he started out to do, dispatching 
on different errands, as he went along, three of the boys 
who were at his heels — one to the house whither he was 
going, to summon its landlady ; one for the physician, and 
one to tell Mrs. Beaufort’s coachman, who had driven 
Miss Bessie to the church, to hurry home as rapidly as 
possible, and fetch from there some person to assist him. 
At the door of the house, he told the other men that he 
could do without them, and then carried his burden into 
his own room, expecting to meet in it his landlady, whom 
he had summoned. But the boy who had been sent for 
her came back to say that the house was entirely empty. 
There was but one thing left for him to do then. Quickly 
dispatching the boy back to the church for the other 
women who were there, the man, without a moment’s 
hesitation, as tenderly as if she had been his own little 
child, and as reverentially as if she had been his own 
mother, laid the girl upon his bed before the open win- 
dow, freed her of what could interfere with the full ac- 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


147 


tion of her lungs, washed the blood from her forehead, 
bathed her brow, her lips, her hands, her pulses. 

It may have been one minute, it may have been ten, 
before the women from the church and the physician 
came to his assistance. The captain never could recon- 
cile with his own experience the stories that they had to 
tell of the haste that they had used in doing so. And 
why should he have been able to reconcile them ? Is the 
amount of one’s experience ever measured by the time 
that it occupies ? There is many a man who, in the midst 
of the most sorrowful surroundings, has believed constant- 
ly in the possibility of happiness for himself, not only in 
this life, but through all eternity, whose ground of belief 
has all been revealed to his experience in a moment as 
brief as that in which Captain Loring felt the burden of 
Bessie Beaufort’s body between his arms, and of her whole 
earthly existence upon his mind. Ah ! man, man, man, 
you think that you were born to struggle ; you enter upon 
the battle of life; you fight with others; you conquer 
them ; you feel the crown of victory upon your brow ; 
you hear the cheers with which the people welcome it ; 
and yet you know that all these ends may be attained, 
and bring no satisfaction with them, bring no proof to 
your soul that you have achieved a single thing that is 
worthy of your manhood. But, by-and-by, in a place 

where you expect it least, a day may come when you have 
7 


148 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


checked your onward course to be the staff of some 
weak, aged form just tottering on the borders of the 
grave ; when you have stooped to lift some sick and suf- 
fering child up from the pathway where the world had 
trodden on it ; when you have knelt to offer all the help 
that you could render to some frail and fainting human 
being, often too inanimate even to solicit your assistance. 
Then, when the health and strength and life of another 
depend on your exertions, then, perhaps, you realize at 
last the reason why you were born to struggle, and were 
given the sinews and the spirit of a man ; then you 
know that you were made to be this life’s protector; 
then you learn just how it is that you may represent and 
be a son of God ; then, too, the inspiration and the bliss of 
the Divine One fill and thrill you through and through. 

And this, as often happens, no matter what may be 
the object of your care. But if that be in itself the em- 
bodiment of sweetness, grace, and beauty, all the more 
divine and blissful is the consciousness that comes then 
of the worth of your high calling. As the captain bent 
above those pale and delicate features, outlined there 
against the white of that same pillow where his own face 
— and to think it seemed to suggest profanation — had 
so often rested ; as he bathed the colorless lips, with an 
ever-rising prayer that Heaven would not be cruel enough 
to drain the dear, warm life from them forever; as he 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


149 


watched those drooping eyelids, and the finely monlded 
lips, with an ever-intenser wish that they would open, see, 
and speak to him — did it require a great while, spent in 
such a manner, think you, to awaken in a bachelor like 
him an interest, personal and peculiar, in the object of 
his thoughts? Before this, we have seen that he had 
found that Bessie Beaufort had a mind and soul, had 
judgment, tact, and kindliness, l^ow he had found that 
she had more than these, that she had a body full of hu- 
man liability to accident and suffering, demanding from 
himself the utmost exercise of help and sympathy. 

And no man ever loved a woman yet till he had found 
out that ; and no man ever found out that, with reference 
to a woman whom his eyes admired and mind respected, 
without surmising for a moment what that saying means, 
that “ every one that loveth is bom of God and knoweth 
God,” and without a prayer, too, that in some way this 
experience of a moment might be rendered permanent, 
because, while it continues, he believes with all his heart 
that “ he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God 
in him.” 


CHAPTEE XIY. 

TO CATCH A LARGER SCHOOL OF FISH, IT 18 DECIDED TO 
USE A DIFFERENT KIND OF NET. 

A FEW moments after the physician and the women 
from the church, for whom the captain had sent, had 
made their appearance, his charge began to revive. But 
she was still too weak, from loss of blood and from ner- 
vous prostration, for them to think of having her taken 
home, and, accordingly, arrangements were made at once 
to keep her where she was until the following day. 

Before long, Mr. Gaspack and the pastor had also ar- 
rived ; and a moment later Mrs. Beaufort and Martha. 
Both the latter, upon seeing the condition of things, 
avowed their intention of remaining in the house until 
they could take the invalid home with them. 

As the captain and the pastor occupied adjoining 
rooms, the two, as was natural, insisted upon vacating 
them in order to accommodate the ladies. But the 
ladies, like most of their sex in emergencies like this, 
declared it to be their purpose to sit up, or if, indeed, 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


151 


they desired any sleep, they assured the young gentlemen 
that they could get all that they needed in a rocking- 
chair or on the lounge. 

This led to a good deal of altercation of a pleasant 
kind, in connection with which, together with various 
arrangements and explanations that had to be made after 
the young men had finally gained their point, not a little 
conversation was necessitated between the pastor and the 
two Beauforts, mother and daughter. 

At first, Mr. Thompson had thought that he would 
not converse with them at all, that he would manage 
matters so that all the talking should be done by the 
captain. But of course in the circumstances, especially 
as the captain did not and could not understand the 
drift of such manoeuvring, this plan could not be carried 
out. After a little, the pastor found himself obliged to 
accept the situation as it was, and, before long, was agree- 
ably surprised to find also that, with exception of a little 
conscious endeavor to be unusually polite, he was feeling 
almost as much at home with the ladies as if he had never 
made them that unfortunate morning visit. Indeed, he 
thought that he had never seen Mrs. Beaufort so gracious 
or Miss Martha so charming. They have been obliged 
by circumstances,’’ he thought, “ to accept of my hospital- 
ity, and they have made up their minds that they must show 
their appreciation of it.” But, if he had heard the short 


152 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


but graphic account of what had happened at the lecture- 
room, that had come from the lips of Thomas, their 
coachman, when he was bringing them to the assistance 
of Miss Bessie, the pastor might have come to a conclu- 
sion more flattering to himself. 

As it was, he trusted that now Mrs. Beaufort would 
soon And out that he had been right in what he had said 
to her about Mr. Gaspack’s methods. At present, how- 
ever, he had no reason to believe that she had done so. 
But, so far as any further inferences really satisfactory to 
himseK personally could be drawn from the manner of 
that lady toward him, he felt that, after what had oc- 
curred in the morning, it would be worse than folly for 
him to entertain them. He only hoped to continue still 
to be a friend of the family. The possibility of becoming 
connected with it by ties more intimate he had shut out 
of his thoughts, as he conceived, forever. 

So, with a throbbing heart and a heaving breast, that 
kept him awake throughout the entire night, and — to tell 
the truth — dashed up not a few tears to his eyes, he con- 
sidered fully, and tried to consider calmly, all the many 
signs of growing intimacy that his willing eyes could 
detect in the conduct of the captain and Miss Martha. 
“Well, well,” he thought, “ if some men can’t be happy, 
others can ; thank God for that ! ” 

And so the night passed by, and the morning came, 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


153 


and with it Mr. Gaspack, driven from the Beaufort man- 
sion, hidden well from the observation of the village 
“boys,” in the back seat of the carriage. The captain 
and the pastor both observed that Mrs. Beaufort’s manner 
toward this gentleman was unusually formal ; but any at- 
tempt to discover something similar in the bearing of 
Miss Bessie, now entering rapidly upon a state of conva- 
lescence, failed. 

It was agreed, of course, upon all hands, that after the 
unfortunate accident of the previous evening, after the 
“ despicable trick ” which, as Mr. Gaspack was careful to 
reiterate, “had been perpetrated upon him,” it would 
scarcely be expedient for this gentleman to continue his 
services in the village just at present. This clause, “ just 
at present,” was put in by the pastor, as an offset to an 
expression on Mr. Gaspack’s countenance when the sub- 
ject was first broached, which seemed to indicate — though 
it might not have done so — a desire, on the part of the 
reformer, to keep on in his work, notwithstanding the 
opposition to him 

After Mr. Gaspack had taken his departure for the 
railway station, and the captain and the pastor were alone 
in their room for a few moments — “ Will,” said the lat- 
ter, “ these services have been announced to continue, and 
they’ve got to continue. You must come in to-night, and 
help me.” 


154 


MODEKN FISHERS OF MEN. 


‘‘ I ! ” exclaimed the captain, “ what an idea ! Why, 
I’m not a temperance man. What can I do ? ” 

You’re not an intemperance man, are you ? ” said his 
friend. 

“ WeU, that’s a way of putting it, certainly.” 

“ It’s the true way, isn’t it ? ” asked his friend. “ You 
know, ‘ he that is not against us, is for us.’ ” 

‘‘ But, then, you see,” said the captain, “ if a fellow 
wants to take a glass of beer now and then — a German, 
for instance — I really can’t find it in my heart to think 
he’s doing anything very wrong.” 

“ But it’s easy enough to think that those boys, loaf- 
ing and drinking in the bar-rooms every day, are doing 
something wrong, isn’t it ? ” 

“ Of course, you know ; but that’s a different thing. 
The grounds are different. Now, there’s Mr. Gaspack — ” 

“ Ah ! but just here,” said the pastor, be good 
enough to remember that Mr. Gaspack is not an ideal 
reformer or man — not mine, and, I strongly suspect, not 
the ideal man either of Chartville church or village.” 

“ No, but who is ? ” 

“ Well, to tell the truth, just at this moment I think 
that the one that can most completely fit that niche is 
Captain Loring. This is the reason why I want you to 
help me to-night. Will.” 

‘‘ Humph ! ” said the captain. “ If I’ve escaped from 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


155 


Mr. Gaspack’s attack as fortunately as you seem to tkink 
I have — no thanks to me, but to his stupidity — ^that’s no 
reason why I should step into the same boots that have 
already slipped up with him, is it ? By Jove ! you 
wouldn’t press into your service another hypocrite, and, 
for all that I can see, as bad a one as he — would you ? ” 

“ There’s no need of any good man’s being a hypo- 
crite in order to do good. Will. There’s enough truth to 
tell to keep one’s tongue at work. One needn’t waste its 
strength on falsehood.” 

“ But I don’t believe,” protested the captain, ‘‘ in all 
this stuff that your reformers talk about. I don’t believe 
that Jesus in Cana made jelly or fresh grape-juice. He 
made wine, or that old fellow wouldn’t have said he’d 
kept the good wine till the end of the feast. I don’t be- 
lieve that these folks who have traveled in France and 
Italy and Germany lie when they say that, where people 
have plenty of light, pure wines and beers, they have 
very few drunkards. I don’t — ” 

“ Oh, well. Will, but now we’ve got to deal with our 
own country. Don’t you think that we’ve plenty of 
whiskey and gin, and wine too, for that matter, that’s 
pretty strong even before it’s adulterated ; and that the 
majority of people would do a good deal better if they’d 
let it alone ? ” 

“ Why, of course, everybody knows that ; but — ” 


156 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


“ Very well, then,” said the pastor, “ if you want to 
make a successful speech, the most important thing to do 
is to say what everybody knows. It’s the best way — don’t 
you see ? — of flattering your audience’s intelligence.” 

“ But, Dick,” his friend went on, “ I can’t help think- 
ing that the very worst thing of all in this drinking 
question is something that your reformers, so far as I 
know, never touch. I mean that senseless, good-for-noth- 
ing custom of treating — making a man drink when he 
doesn’t want to drink because some one asks him to do 
so; or because he happens to meet some one who has 
treated him in the past, and whom he feels that he ought 
to treat back ; and making him drink more than he ought 
because the whole company in the bar-room, each of 
them, has to treat all around ; and making him drink out 
of meal-hours when there’s nothing for the stuff to oper- 
ate on but the empty coats of the stomach, where, of 
course, it creates irritation and an unnatural craving for 
more of the same thing. Now, in Germany, they say, if 
a man asks you to take a glass of beer with him, he ex- 
pects you to pay for your own beer, and all these evils 
are prevented.” 

“ Well, come in and tell the people so to-night,” said 
the pastor, with a laugh; “that alone would make a 
speech in itself.” 

But just then they were called into the next room. 


I 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 157 

The carriage had returned from the railroad station, and 
all the Beauforts, Bessie included, were about to leave 
them. 

“ He’s been trying to get me into Mr. Gaspack’s boots 
to-night,” said the captain, as the two entered the room 
together. 

“ I’m afraid,” said Martha, with a little laugh and a 
queer little shrug of her shoulders, “ that you’re not a 
great enough man to fill them.” 

“ What’s that ? ” asked Bessie. 

“ Oh, nothing,” answered the captain ; “ only Dick 
wants me to help him — ^to make a speech, or something 
of that sort, to-night at the meeting.” 

“ And aren’t you going to do it ? ” she asked again. 

“ Why, how can I ? ” he said. 

“ Just as well as not,” said the pastor. “ He’s been 
giving me, in the other room, ideas enough for the 
schedule of a speech two hours long, any one of which, if 
carried out, would make our town about ten times more 
sober than it is at present.” 

“ Well,” said the captain, “ if that were the object—” 

“ It’s object enough at any rate,” put in Bessie, laugh- 
ing, “ and you’ve so much influence — you’ve done so well 
with the boys — ” 

‘‘I thought they came to another conclusion the other 
evening,” said the captain. 


158 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


It wasn’t the conclusion^ was it ? ” remarked Bessie, 
casting her eyes downward — “ that came, didn’t it, last 
evening ? ” 

“ If your conclusion came then,” said the captain, in 
a fervent undertone, as he bent down to escort her to the 
carriage — he was thinking of her engagement to Mr. Gas- 
pack — “ I shall abide by it.” 

And that evening the captain took part in the exer- 
cises at the church, and so, too, on subsequent evenings ; 
and in the large reformatory society, founded, as he was 
wont to claim, on rational principles, that he and the pas- 
tor were instrumental in starting, with its reading-rooms 
bowling alley, and gymnasium open all day and almost 
every night, and its weekly literary and social meetings 
and lectures — all that Miss Bessie Beaufort had had to 
say about his influence with “ the boys ” was abundantly 
verifled. 


CHAPTER XY. 


A SUNSET ON THE FISHING-GROUNDS. 

One afternoon, as the captain was returning from his 
law-lectures, his landlady met him at her door to tell him 
that she had received two messages from the barber, re- 
questing the pastor and himself to come to his house 
immediately, and visit his son, Johnny. The boy had 
been in the factory during the morning, and while there 
had been accidentally pushed by one of his comrades 
against a large leather strap ; and, before he could get 
away from it, the strap had dragged him to one of the 
great wheels, and crushed under it one of his limbs. It 
was feared that the boy would die. The pastor, she 
went on to say, had gone to the city, and probably would 
not return till late in the evening, possibly not until the 
following day. 

The captain’s heart was in his throat at once. He 
had begun to love this boy, and, although he had become 
accustomed to scenes of suffering through witnessing 


160 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


them on the battle-field, it made the tears come into his 
eyes to think of his little friend made a cripple for life, 
perhaps, if not already in a dying condition. Without 
stopping in his room any longer than was necessary to 
snatch np a Bible, which, as his eye fell upon it, he had a 
vague impression that he ought, in the circumstances, to 
carry with him, he hurried away to obey the summons. 

When he reached the barber’s house, he found a large 
number of the neighbors collected about it, and still more 
of them, as it seemed to him, in its hall, and crowding 
into the very room in which the poor boy was lying. 
Both through looks and words, moreover — in a way the 
inconsiderate heartlessness of which gave almost as great 
a shock to the captain’s feelings as the pale face that he 
had come to visit — ^they were giving exceedingly pointed 
intimations of what they considered to be the sufferer’s 
condition. 

“ They say I’ve got to die, captain — they say I’ve got 
to die,” said the latter, moaning feebly, as with wide, 
wild eyes he looked up to welcome the new-comer. 

The captain took the boy’s hand and pressed it gently. 
He felt that he could never talk to him as he should talk, 
and that the boy would never be prepared to listen to him 
as he should listen, in such a stifling air or before so many 
eyes. 

“Johnny and I are old friends,” he said, gazing 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


101 


quietly around on those who were filling the apartment. 
“ I rather think he wants to see me alone.” 

“ Yes, yes, sir,” came from the head on the pillow. 

So the room was cleared, though — I am sorry to say it 
— not without a good deal of disappointment manifested 
on the faces and in the phrases of those who had left it. 
Forsooth, they would “ have liked to hear so what the 
captain would have to say ; they didn’t see why he needed 
to be so very particular about things.” And, thinking 
thus, the self-same souls that a moment before had been 
overflowing with self-complacency to think how they had 
left their household cares in order to come and sympa- 
thize with their neighbors, were just as ready now — per- 
haps a great deal more ready — to overflow with regret 
that they had done so. Had they not failed to be reward- 
ed as they might have been ? When again should they 
get a chance to see a poor boy die, who had been crushed 
by the factory wheels ? When again to hear what a cap- 
tain just out of the army, who, in place of a minister, 
had come to visit the boy, would have to say to him ? 
Alas for the fickleness and feebleness of human nature ! 

Meantime the captain, from a few hurried whispers 
of the father, who sat by the bedside looking as though 
his final hope had fled, had learned that the opinions ex- 
pressed with reference to the boy’s condition by the neigh- 
bors who had just left the room were only too well found- 


162 


MODERN FISHERS OP MEN. 


ed. The boy was dying. The physician had no longer 
any hope of saving him. “An’ he’s been a-gettin’ so 
anxious-like to see you, sir,” said the barber. “ He kind 
o’ seems to think as though you could help him, sir.” 

“ I don’t want to die,” murmured the boy, “ and they 
say I’ve got to.” 

“ But, Johnny,” said the captain, trying hard to keep 
back his tears and to steady his voice, and equally hard to 
express the religious truths that the circumstances seemed 
imperatively to demand, “ you’re not going out of God’s 
hands, you know. He owns this world, and he’ll own 
every world, wherever you go.” 

“But God don’t like me,” moaned the boy, “I’m 
bad.” 

“ Yes, he’s been a-thinkin’ o’ that,” said the father, 
“ an’ he’s been a-wantin’ to tell you how as he’s the one 
as put the bottle into that there man Gaspack’s pocket. 
He was a-tellin’ me on it this mornin’. The boys hooked 
the bottle from old Cooley. Old Cooley ’s an old drunken 
fellow, you know ; and then Johnny, why, he puts it into 
the overcoat in the pulpit. Then it broke, you see. And 
Johnny, he didn’t mean to have it break, an’ so he was 
kind o’ shamed and frightened at the trick, an’ didn’t tell 
anybody about it tiU this momin’.” 

“ If you feel so badly about it, Johnny,” said the cap- 
tain, “ if you feel that you have done wrong to Mr. Gas- 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


163 


pack, why, I’ll tell him of it ; and, if you want to have 
me. I’ll tell the other people of it too. I’ll tell them it 
was all meant for a joke, and that it was all a mistake to 
have the bottle break ; and then they won’t think so bad- 
ly of Mr. Gaspack ; and he won’t feel so badly. We’U 
make it all right again.” 

“ Will you ? ” said the boy, smiling. But in a moment 
his sad expression had come back again. “ I’m bad be- 
sides,” he said. 

“We’re aU bad sometimes, Johnny,” answered the 
captain. “ Don’t you know what I was reading to you 
last Sunday, how the Bible says ‘ we have all sinned,’ and 
how Jesus Christ came to save us for that very reason, 
and how good and kind he was ; how willing he was to 
forgive men for their sins, and to die for their sins ; and 
don’t you remember how I told you that, in doing aU this, 
he was the image, the likeness of God, so that if we want- 
ed to know what God is, we must think of what Christ 
was? You wouldn’t be afraid of Christ, would you, 
who took those little children in his arms, and healed all 
those sick people, and went and took his meals with all 
those poor sinners, whom the rich men wouldn’t have 
anything to do with ? ” 

“ Was he like you ? ” asked the boy. 

At that question, every nerve in the captain’s body 
seemed to tremble. Then, with a flash of meaning that 


164 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


appeared to him as authoritative as a revelation direct 
from divinity, there came into his head the full signifi- 
cance of the words uttered, in substance, once to St. Peter, 
once to all the assembled apostles; but once, too, in a 
general address, the application of which was limited to 
no class : Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted ; 
whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.” He seemed 
to understand now how it is that human love may repre- 
sent on earth and accomplish the results of divine love. 
Ho priest administering extreme unction ever felt more di- 
vinely ordained to remit sins than he did at this moment. 

“ Jesus Christ was a great deal better than I, Johnny,” 
he said, “ more gentle, more ready to forgive and love,” 
and, opening his Bible, he began to read such passages as 
he supposed would commend themselves to the boy’s un- 
derstanding. 

But, after a time, that pale little face appeared to be 
growing weary of its lesson. “ Johnny,” he said, “ would 
you like to pray with me ? ” 

“ Yes, sir — ^yes, sir,” came in feeble whispers from the 
pillow. 

And then this man knelt down beside that bed to 
pray, for the first time, in all his mature life, aloud. 
Ho matter what he prayed. The words were not so 
much. God looks upon the heart; and now his heart 
was full ; for in it seemed to rest the whole accumulating 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


165 


weight of the suffering and the yearning of that sad, 
small, helpless human frame before him. He felt as if 
his soul were lifting up the whole of it with every breath 
and heart-beat. 

And let us believe that, all the time that he was pray- 
ing, within that dying boy, a new-born consciousness of 
living was beginning to unfold; let us believe this, 
though the self-same influence that was moving it so 
gently was striking, with a force as fierce as tempests 
when they shake the driving rain off from the swaying 
oaks, against the kneeling, trembling, weeping forms of 
the sorrowing father and mother of the child, who held 
their faces in their hands on either side of the one whose 
voice was leading them in prayer. Poor parents, it was 
well, perhaps, that the storm should rage, and that their 
hopes, like dead, dry leaves, should fall about them. Had 
they not reached the autumn-time of life ? They were 
both advanced in years. Ho other child would now be born 
to them. With Johnny, all the sunshine and the promise 
of their days were soon to go forever. At last, the cap- 
tain’s prayer had ended. He bent his head above the pillow. 

“You can trust in Jesus, can’t you, Johnny? You 
can love him, can’t you ? You will know him when you 
see him in the other world ? ” 

“Yes, . . I shall . . know him,” whispered Johnny, 
gently, “ for .... he’ll be ... . like you.” And 


166 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


the small voice died away, and the father and the mother 
kissed their boy. His eye looked back his thanks to them, 
he tried to smile, and then they knew that they had a boy 
no longer. 

As the prayer at the bedside, just before the boy had 
passed away, had ended, some one had entered the bed- 
chamber, but very softly. When all was over, and the 
captain had lifted up his eyes, he saw, standing there at 
the door, evidently in the same attitude in which she had 
opened it, Bessie Beaufort. “ Pardon me,” she said, when 
she had found an opportunity. “ Johnny had sent for 
me. They said he wished to see me — ^to say something 
of that accident, that evening, in the church; and the 
neighbor who appeared to have charge here would in- 
sist upon my coming to the door, and then she opened it 
the moment you had ceased to speak. I didn’t know the 
poor boy was so near his end.” 

‘‘Yes,” said the captain, sadly; “it’s all over with 
him now.” 

“ It might have been,” said Bessie, “ but I can’t be- 
lieve it. See the smile upon his face — and it all came 
from thinking what he never would have thought of, if 
he hadn’t been to our Sunday-school.” 

“ And he never would ’a’ staid there,” said the father 
of the boy, “ but for the captain.” 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


167 


‘‘And /never should have been or staid there,” said 
the captain, with a slight wave of his hand in the direc- 
tion of Bessie, and with a vain attempt to keep back his 
emotion, “ but for her.” 

And, leaving Bessie to console the barber and his wife, 
as he felt that she knew so much better how to do than 
he, he walked back slowly to his boarding-house. 


CHAPTEK XYI. 


A FEW CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO 
SOME SUCCESSFUL FISHERS. 

For several weeks and months, the physical frame of 
the head of Chartville church had been becoming more 
attenuated, and his nervous system more emphatic in its 
manifestations. The French have a saying to the effect 
that mind tends to spirit. Perhaps the reason of this 
change in the pastor, which all could notice, was due to 
the greater amount of mental ammunition which, as all 
could also notice, he was using in his endeavors to in- 
crease the spiritual effectiveness of his sermons. Possi- 
bly, too, the greater depth of experience that these same 
sermons were beginning to evince — that undertone of 
sadness in view of the world as it is, and of aspiration 
in view of the world as it should be — was owing to a 
similar expenditure of his mind’s resources. But if one 
had been enabled to read the pastor’s thoughts, he might 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


169 


have found some reason for considering such a view not 
wholly comprehensive of the facts. The truth is that, 
behind the veil that hid these thoughts from a world that 
had no business to discover them, a face appeared that 
everywhere, no matter what he might be doing, evermore 
was haunting him. Why is it,” he would often ask 
himself, ‘‘ that I can never shake the remembrance of her 
off?” 

Yet, all the while that he was trying to accomplish 
this result, from the very effort that his mind and soul 
had made, and were making constantly, to get away from 
this remembrance, both were growing day by day, in 
power and influence. Kot only were his sermons now be- 
coming more acceptable, but so was he himself. Since 
Mr. Graspack’s sudden fall in popular esteem, and Captain 
Loring’s just as sudden rise, and the success attending 
the society to reform the neighborhood, the people had 
been forced to admit the pastor’s worth and wisdom. 
Even Mrs. Beaufort had acknowledged, time and time 
again, that once she had formed a wrong impression of 
him ; in short, the mine of mischief that his diplomatic 
tendencies of mind had fired on the night of that church- 
festival, and but for which the reader would have saved 
the eyesight wasted on this story, had now exploded its 
remotest puff of smoke, and all, once more, was peace and 
sunshine. 


170 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


But the pastor was not happy. JS^ot that he was really 
jealous of his friend the captain, whose visits to the Beau- 
fort mansion were becoming, week by week, more fre- 
quent, and, as any tyro could have seen, more interesting. 
The pastor was above such feelings. He sincerely wished 
to have his friend as fortunate as Providence could make 
him. But if only things could have turned out otherwise 
in some way, or if only he liimself could have shaken 
aside the fancy that he had had for Martha Beaufort, 
life, he thought, would not have seemed so little worth 
the living. 

What the captain said or did on these occasions when 
he went to see the Beauforts the pastor never was in- 
formed. He avoided all allusion to the family. And 
only now and then, when Will would return in a fit of 
indignation or disgust because in his visit he had met 
with Mr. Gaspack, who seemed to produce upon him 
about the same effect as a red scarf on a Spanish bull, 
was there any mention even of the place in which the 
evening had been spent. 

nevertheless the pastor understood the matter thor- 
oughly, he thought. He knew which way the captain’s 
feet were wont to turn in the evenings when he left his 
room. He recognized the penmanship upon the little 
notes that, every few days, lay upon the captain’s table. 
He did not need to be informed of the reason why the 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


171 


captain seemed reserved with reference to his afternoon 
croquet and twilight entertainments. To be sure, once 
or twice, he himself had called at the Beaufort man- 
sion. But then it had been his duty. He once or twice 
had spoken — at some length, too — with Miss Martha 
Beaufort, when he had met her in the street. But, not- 
withstanding this, he felt assured, and had resolved to 
bear it like a man, that there could be nothing further 
for him in the Beaufort family till, by-and-by, perhaps he 
should receive some wedding-fees from there — a large 
one, probably, from Captain Boring, and a very, very 
small one, possibly, from Mr. Gaspack. 

One day, however, when he knew that the captain 
was to sup at the Beauforts’, he started up in haste from 
the last edition of the evening paper that had just been 
brought him, and began to make a hurried toilet. Could 
it be that he was about to follow the captain there ? These 
actions certainly recalled those former days in which 
he was wont to visit where the captain now had gone. 
He was, indeed, about to follow him. This last edition 
of the paper had contained a dispatch stating that in 
the political convention then in session in an adjacent 
town, after several hours of balloting for a candidate for 
the Legislature at the ensuing State election, the name 
of Captain William Boring had been suddenly brought 

forward ; and that, by a fusion of the “ temperance 
8 


172 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


men ” and the “ Independents ” of the party, he had re- 
ceived the nomination. The pastor knew that his friend 
had been requested by his admirers in the village to 
allow his name to be used at this convention, but he knew 
that the captain never had supposed that there was any 
likelihood that they would use it. The nomination, which, 
in a district such as theirs, was equivalent to an election, 
would be a genuine surprise, he felt, to everybody. 

“ I must go to the Beauforts, right away,” he thought, 
“ and fetch him home. In a couple of hours, the whole 
town will be here to serenade him.” 

Meantime the captain, sitting with the sisters at the 
Beaufort supper-table, had received a note, from a friend 
who happened to be informed of where he was, convey- 
ing to him the same intelligence. It had begun already 
to circulate, like wildfire, through the village. 

Miss Bessie, ” said he, as the family rose from the 
table, “ isn’t it a good time now for you to show that flower 
to me in the green-house, the one that you were talking 
to me about, you know ? ” Then, when the two were 
out of the others’ hearing, “ I’ve got some news,” he said ; 
“ I want to tell you of it,” and he placed the note that 
had been sent him in her hands. 

He had, long since, ceased to apprehend that he had 
much to fear from Mr. Gaspack. When, several weeks 
before this, he had told her Johnny’s story of the bottle 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


173 


— the story that the boy upon his deathbed had been 
so anxious to have him tell to everybody — she had sim- 
ply answered : “ Mr. Gaspack wasn’t to blame for having 
the bottle, then, only for having the bottle render him 
ridiculous.” 

The remark had not meant much, perhaps, not half 
as much as the captain would have liked to have it 
mean. To tell the truth, like most of my readers, prob- 
ably, who have drawn their views of life from novels 
rather than from Kature, he had not been altogether 
pleased to think that Mr. Gaspack, after all — so far as 
had been proved — was not a hypocrite nor a scoundrel 
— only a very pretentious, self -conceited, inconsiderate 
blunderer. But it was something, nevertheless, to have 
him seem ridiculous; and, after a time, as he himself 
had grown more intimate with Miss Bessie, and had 
ventured to discuss with her the reformer’s methods, he 
had come to be convinced that, if she had ever been en- 
gaged to him, the engagement could not still be binding. 
When now she had finished reading the note that he had 
handed her, the fiush and look of pride that came upon 
her face as she returned it seemed to him the sweetest 
sight that he had ever seen. 

“ Do you know to whom I owe it all ? ” he asked. 

“ How so ? ” she said. 

“ Do you remember how it was that I came to be con- 


174 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


nected with this temperance movement, and to start the 
society through which I seem to have gained such influ- 
ence in the neighborhood? Do you remember how I 
came to go into the Sunday-school, that indirectly drew 
me into the temperance movement, and to poor Johnny’s 
bedside, and to doing things for other people that I hadn’t 
any conception that a man like me could do till I had 
tried them ? ” 

The face at his side was bent down gazing at the 
floor. Unconsciously he had clasped her hand, and now 
was pressing it passionately. Had she not understood 
his words, his actions would have rendered them no 
longer doubtful. 

‘‘ You have done so much for me,” he went on — “far 
more than, a year ago, I should have dreamt of anybody’s 
doing : given me influence here — a position in the Church 
and State. And there’s another sphere in life,” he added 
hurriedly, as though he feared that, if he should stop, his 
courage might forsake him — “ another sphere, in which a 
woman can do more for one than in this, and that is — in 
the home. What might a home not be, could it have you 
there as its mistress ! ” 

They walked a little way in silence. Then the girl, 
who had not yet looked up, knelt down on the pavement 
of the green-house. They had reached the flower that 
she had taken him there to see. That flower she plucked, 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


175 


and a leaf or two, and then she rose and reached up to his 
button-hole — ^the one in his coat that lay the nearest to 
his heart — and placed her gift within it. Then the cap- 
tain caught her head between his hands, and made her 
look up toward him ; and it was not the hot flush on her 
cheeks that dried the tears that trembled in her eyes, nor 
the smile that was breaking there that shook them off, 
but the first embrace in which she buried her blushing 
face in the bosom of her heart’s true love. 

“ I congratulate you, Will ! ” cried the pastor, as he 
entered the green-house, hurrying down the pathway 
with Miss Martha. 

“ On what ? ” said the captain, thinking only of his 
love, and startled by the sudden apparition there of his 
friend so soon congratulating him. 

“ Why, on your nomination,” said the pastor ; and 
he began to tell the news that he had brought wdth 
him. 

But there had been already such confusion and such 
blushing on the part of those to whom he was speaking, 
that there seemed to be but one way left of righting 
matters. 

“ To tell the truth, Dick,” said the captain, in his 
frankest manner, “ we supposed you were congratulating 
us on something better.” 


176 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


Then he looked at his companion, and of course she 
blushed, and of course Miss Martha had to hide her sis- 
ter’s blush by going up and kissing her. And then the 
pastor’s turn had come to be embarrassed. With a face 
as pale as death, “ Are you engaged ? ” he asked. 

“ We are,” said the captain ; ‘‘ any objection, Dick ? ” 
And then instinctively the pastor turned and looked 
at Martha ; and, as the captain always said, from the color 
on her face, as she looked back at him, the worst fool 
living might have known that there was fruit there 
ripe and ready to tumble at the first touch into his 
hands. 

“ But I thought,” said the pastor, stumbling, in his 
wish to relieve the general embarrassment, into the very 
best way out of it — “ I thought Miss Bessie was — was 
promised to Mr. Gaspack.” 

This name and the thoughts conjured by this sugges- 
tion could not but recall at once the party from their 
poetry, and restore them to the realm of prose. 

“ Poor Mr. Gaspack ! ” Martha cried ; “ he hung 
around here fully two years — ” 

“ Hush ! hush ! ” said Bessie, gently interrupting her, 
whereat Miss Martha merely made the least suggestion of 
a pout with her pretty lips and a shrug with her slender 
shoulders, as much as if to say, “ Why, it’s all in the fam- 
ily, you know.” And while she did so, the pastor, seeing 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


177 


it, felt his heart begin to beat so wildly that he really 
could not help recalling how in time past one of the 
Dickory family of sainted memory had died of heart dis- 
ease. Of course he did not feel so very bad about it now. 
The event had happened several years before. The rec- 
ollection came across his mental vision only like a colder 
background of the present picture, the warmer hues of 
which at once burst forth again in full relief as he 
heard the sweet voice at his side continuing. ‘‘ He hung 
around here,” Martha said, “for fully two years, and 
wanted Bessie. Poor, dear mamma, too — she wanted it, 
you know; but, of course, it couldn’t be. And Bessie 
always would provoke me so with the way she treated 
him and spoke of him. Ho wonder everybody took them 
for engaged.” 

“ But Mr. Gaspack comes here yet,” said the pastor, 
“ doesn’t he ? ” 

“And Miss Inthway stays here yet,” said Martha, 
with a significant little laugh. “ And the captain flirted 
with her here one night — don’t you remember ? — and the 
next time Mr. Gaspack had a chance, he gave his senti- 
ments in Chartville church — don’t you remember ? — with 
reference to the unchristian conduct of this captain.” 
And she ended with an imitative tone and gesture, that 
brought another “ Hush ! hush ! ” from her sister. 

“ Ah ! ” said the pastor and the captain both together. 


178 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


with the air of men who have just received a special 
revelation. 

But far awaj the music of a band and the shouts of 
men were sounding, and the lights of a hundred torches 
began to glimmer through the street that led up from the 
village to the Beaufort mansion. It was evident that the 
people had discovered where the captain was. 

But the man whom they were seeking looked away 
from the brilliant scene in the distance into the eyes of 
the woman at his side. “Not there is the light to guide 
me on,” he thought, “ but here. Not there, in the music 
and the shouting, is the sound that, now or at any time, 
can call my spirit forth to work out with complete success 
the problem of its life. Nay, nay; but in the sympa- 
thizing glance and in the ‘ still small voice ’ of her I love — 
in these I heed, and shall have ever with me too, the 
presence and the summons of the Power most sovereign 
over all the best within me.” 

The captain made his speech. The people cheered 
him over and over again. He walked back with the pas- 
tor to their rooms, and there, through almost all the night, 
the two men sat up talking. 

“Well, well, it’s a strange world, isn’t it?” said the 
captain, as at last they rose up, ready to retire just when 
the morn was breaking. 

“ A very, very strange world,” said the other. 


MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. 


179 


But both were prepared to admit that, in certain 
circumstances, for men with noble ends in view and 
kindly ways of reaching them, or willing to be guided 
toward such ends and ways by voices, hands, and hearts 
of other souls devoted to this work, the world might also 
be a very happy one. 


THE END. 












OTHER WORKS BY PROF. GEO. L. RAYMOND 


The Essentials of .Esthetics. 8vo. Illustrated . . Net, $2.50 

This work, which is mainly a compendium of the author’s system of Comparative 
Esthetics, previously published in seven volumes, was prepared, by request, for a text- 
book, and for readers whose time is too limited to study the minutiae of the subject. 

“ We consider Professor Raymond to possess something like an ideal equipment. . . . 
His own poetry is genuine and delicately constructed, his appreciations are true to high 
ideals, and his power of scientific analysis is unquestionable.” . . . “ After gradua- 

ting in this country, he went through a course of aesthetics with Professor Vischer of the 
University of Tubingen, and also with Professor Curtius at the time when that historian 
of Greece was spending several hours a week with his pupils among the marbles of the 
Berlin Museum. Subsequently, believing that all the arts are, primarily, developments 
of different forms of expression through the tones and movements of the body. Professor 
Raymond^ made a thorough study, chiefly in Paris, of methods of cultivating and using 
the voice in both singing and speaking, and of representing thought and emotion through 
postures and gestures. It is a result of these studies that he afterwards developed, first, 
into his methods of teaching elocution and literature (as embodied in his ^ Orator’s 
Manual * and ‘ The Writer ’) and later into his aesthetic system. ... A Princeton 
man has said of him that he has as keen a sense for a false poetic element as a bank expert 
for a counterfeit note; and a New York model who posed for him, when preparing illustra- 
tions for one of his books, said that he was the only man that he had ever met who could 
invariably, without experiment, tell him at once what posture to assume in order to rep- 
resent any required sentiment .” — New York Times, 

A Life in Song. 16°, cloth extra, gilt top ..... $1.25 

” Mr. Raymond is a poet, with all that the name implies. He has the true fire — there is 
no disputing that. There is thought of an elevated character, the diction is pure, the 
versification is true, the meter correct, and . . . affords innumerable quotations to fortify 
and instruct one for the struggles of life.’ — Hartford Post, 

Ballads, and Other Poems. 16°, cloth extra, gilt top . . $1.25 

“ A work of true genius, brimful of imagination and sweet humanity.” — The Fireside 
(London). 

‘‘ Fine and strong, its thought original and suggestive, while its expression is the very 
perfection of narrative style .” — The N, Y. Critic. 

” Proves beyond doubt that Mr. Raymond is the possessor of a poetic faculty which is 
worthy of the most careful and conscientious cultivation.” — N. Y. Evening Post. 

The Aztec God and Other Dramas. i6“, cloth extra, gilt top . $1.25 

“ The three dramas included in this volume represent a felicitous, intense, and me- 
lodious expression of art both from the artistic and poetic point of view. . . . Mr. 
Raymond’s power is above all that of psychologist, and added thereto are the richest 
products of the imagination both in form and spirit. The book clearly discloses the work 
of a man possessed of an extremely refined critical poise, of a culture pure and classical, 
and a sensitive conception of what is sweetest and most ravishing in tone-quality. The 
most delicately perceptive ear could not detect a flaw in the mellow and rich music of the 
blank verse .” — Public Opinion. 

Dante and Collected Verse. 16®, cloth extra, gilt top . • $1.25 

” The book, in its adaptation of modern ideas and of metrical accomplishment to old 
world themes, is a characteristic product of American culture and refinement.” 

Edinburgh (Scotland) Scotsman. ^ 

” Brother Jonathan cannot claim many great pcets, but we think he has ‘ struck oil ’ 
in Professor Raymond .” — Western (England) Morning News. 

“ This brilliant composition . . . gathers up and concentrates for the reader more 

of the reality of the great Italian than is readily gleaned from the author of the Inferno 
himself .” — Oakland Enquirer, 

The Writer (with Post Wheeler), a concise and complete Rhetoric. 



“ Of great value not only in the schoolroom but in the library.” Education. 

Tht* Orator’s Manual. A Text-book of Vocal-culture, Emphasis, 

Gesture, anfthe Subject-matter of Public Address. I2» Net, $1.20 

” It is undoubtedly the most complete and thorough tr^tise on oratory for the practi- 
cal student ever pubUshed.”— 7 %^ Educational W eekly., Chicago. 

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, New York and London 


Professor Raymond’s Seven Volumes Containing a System of 


COMPARATIVE ESTHETICS 


I. — Art in Theory. 8°, cloth extra $i .75 

“Scores an advance upon the many art-criticisms extant. . . . Twenty brilliant chap- 
ters, pregnant with suggestion. . . . An author not bound by mental servitude.” — Popu- 
lar Science Monthly. 

“A well grounded, thoroughly supported, and entirely artistic conception of art as a whole, 
that will lead observers to apply its principle! . and to distrust the charlatanism that 
imposes an idle aj^d superficial mannerism upon the public in place of true beauty and 
honest workmanship.” — The New York Times. 

“ His style is good, and his logic sound, and . of the greatest possible service to the stu- 
dent of artistic theories.” — Art yournal (London). 

“ Every careful reader must be delighted at the handling of the subject, at once so har- 
monious and symmetrical as well as natural . . it appears in a form which one may almost 
call artistic in itself.” — The Dialy signed by E. E. Hale., Jr. 

II. — The Representative Significance of Form. 

III. — Poetry as a Representative Art. 8®, cloth extra . . $i .75 

“ I have read it with pleasure, and a sense of instruction on many points.”— Tur- 
ner Palgrave^ Professor of Poetry, Oxford University. 

“ Dieses ganz vortreffliche Werk.” — Englische Studien^ Universitdt Breslau. 

“There are absolute and attainable standards of poetic excellence. Perhaps they have 
never been so well set forth as by Prof. Raymond.’ — Boston Traveller. 

“Treats a broad and fertile subject with scholarly proficiency and earnestness, and an 
amplitude and exactness of illustration that make his work definitely and clearly explicit.” 
— New Orleans Times-Democrat. 


IV. — Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture as Representative Arts. 
With 225 illustrations. 8° $2.50 

“ The artist will find in it a wealth of profound and varied learning ; of original, suggest- 
ive, helpful thought . of absolutely inestimable value. He will perceive more perfer ly 
than ever before the representative character of art, and how it can be used as a medium 
of human thought and emotion.” — The Looker-on. 

“ Expression by means of extension or size, . shape, . regularity in outlines . . the human 
body . posture, gesture, and movement . are all considered. . A specially interesting 
chapter is the one on color.” — Current Literature. 

“ The whole book is the work of a man of exceptional thoughtfulness, who says what he 
has to say in a remarkably lucid and direct manner.” — Philadelphia Press. 


V. — The Genesis of Art-Form. Fully illustrated. 8° . . $2.25 

“ In a spirit at once scientific and that of the true artist, he pierces through the manifesta- 
tions of art to their sources, and shows the relations, intimate and essential, between 
painting, sculpture, poetry, music, and architecture. A book that possesses not only sin- 
gular value, but singular charm.” — N. Y. Times. 

“A help and a delight. Every aspirant for culture in any of the liberal arts, including 
music and poetry, will find something in this book to aid him.” — Boston Times. 

“It is impossible to withhold one’s admiration from a treatise which exhibits in such a 
rare degree the qualities of philosophic criticism.” — Philadelphia Press. 


VI. — Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and Music. Together with 

Music as a Representative Art. 8°, cloth extra . $1.75 

** Prof. Raymond has chosen a delightful subject, and he treats it with all the charm of 
narrative and high thought and profound study.” — New Orleans States. 

“ In other ways. Prof. Raymond's book calls for high praise, and in nothing more than for 
the gallant way in which he stands for higher ideals in art than those which are popular in 
these days.” — Springfield Republican. 

“The reader must be, indeed, a person either of supernatural stupidity or of marvellous 
erudition, who does not discover much information in Prof. Raymond's exhaustive and 
instructive treatise. From page to page it is full of suggestion.” — The A cademy (London). 

VII. — Proportion and Harmony of Line and Color in Painting, 

Sculpture, and Architecture. With 131 illustrations. 8®. $2.50 


“ One need not be a scholar to follow this scholar as he teaches while seeming to entertain ; 
for he does both.” — Burlington Hawkeye. ' 

“ Future criticisms of art will be incomplete if they do not take into account this solid con- 
tribution to knowledge of the subject.” — Chicago Post. 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, New York and London 


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UBRARY OF CONGRESS 



